Selaginella Lepidophylla
by 0TheCluster0
Summary: The Crystal Gems have often thought that everything would be so much easier if Rose had never left, that everything would be so much better if she could somehow come back. Unfortunately, reality isn't quite that simple.
1. Prologue

Selaginella lepidophylla. _Siempre viva. Stone flower. -a type of spikemoss noted for its ability to survive almost complete desiccation, then reviving with the tiniest amount of water._

 _This is why, among its many names, it is called The Resurrection Plant._

 **Selaginella lepidophylla  
Prologue**

Dinner at the Temple could be something of an affair.

Not always, of course. The Gems were busy, and Steven didn't exactly have a normal teenager's schedule. Often dinner could be nothing more than a cream-cheese bagel or a pizza. However, the Gems did attempt to have a Proper Family Night Meal™ once per week to ensure Steven got just enough human structure in his life. Those nights almost always blossomed into something elaborate. Foods of all kinds, dozens of dishes, cutlery flying everywhere, enough leftovers for weeks- not to mention with the Gems' limited knowledge of cooking- it was only through sheer luck (and liberal use of Future Vision) that Steven didn't get poisoned.

Eventually, a proper dinner came out of the mess, one ascribed to the latest Food Pyramid Pearl had memorized last year. Everyone sat down at the dining table set they laid out for such occasions. Two plates were filled with food, each serving carefully portioned out and separated (no matter how much Amethyst insisted on mashing it all together; they weren't _animals_ ).

The other plates were all empty since only Steven and Amethyst were actually going to eat, but that didn't matter. This was simply How Things Were Done.

The sound of cutlery scraping together filled the kitchen as Steven and Amethyst ploughed through the first course: roast chicken and stuffing, with a side of fresh garden salad, and an empty cheese packet for Amethyst.

" _Delicious,_ Pearl," said Steven, skewering some salad on a fork.

Pearl blushed as she absently straightened her cutlery and brushed a stray crumb off her pristine plate.

"Well, I'm glad you like it," Pearl said. "It's good to know the new spices are suitable—"

"I crushed the garlic," said Garnet as she held up her fist.

" _S'good_ ," Amethyst said, mouth stuffed with food. She swallowed. "But I still think it could use some soap."

"Don't talk with your mouth full!" said Pearl. "And you shouldn't eat that anyway. Soap is toxic to humans."

"Yeah? Well, why do they rub it all over their bodies?"

"You could still add some soap now," suggested Steven.

"Yeah, but it's not the _same_ unless it's cooked in the stuff," Amethyst whined. "You gotta _marinate_ with it, so it has all that clean flavor! Seasoning, you know. That's like, cooking 101!"

"You're absolutely disgusting," Pearl said with a good natured smile.

"You know you love it," Amethyst replied.

Wordlessly, Garnet walked over and grabbed the soap bottle. She tossed it to Amethyst, who quickly doused her food with it.

"Hooooh, _yeah yeah!_ There we go," Amethyst said. "Pearl, wanna bite?"

Pearl wrinkled her nose.

"I'll _pass_ ," she said.

Amethyst shrugged and shoved more chicken in her mouth as suds dripped onto her chin.

After a few moments of silent eating, Steven sat up straight.

"Oh, Pearl, I wanted to ask you— Connie was wondering if she could come over for training tomorrow?" he asked.

"I thought she had like, tennis or something?" said Amethyst.

"She did, but her coach got the flu and isn't sure he'll be able to make it," said Steven.

Garnet said, "He won't."

"Well, in that case," said Pearl, "Yes, we can certainly arrange training for tomorrow. Say, around ten? I was thinking that we'd try—"

She was cut off by the _whoosh_ of the warp pad activating.

Everyone turned towards it, expecting Peridot or Lapis.

It was neither.

The Gem was tall. No, not just tall, but broad and _towering_. She wore a white dress, soot stained and burned at the hems. The smell of ash hung around her. Her left hand was completely encased in a weapon, one which tapered to a deadly point. Her other hand was clenched into a fist, knuckles white. Her long pink curls were tangled, drenched with sweat, and singed at the ends.

She stood on the warp pad, staring at the house and the people there. She met all their eyes. Amethyst. Garnet. Pearl.

 _Steven._

And she burst into tears.

oOoOo

 **Authors' Note** : Hello, folks! We're The Cluster!

Yes, 'we'. This is a collaboration account for various SU fans from across the web, and we've all joined together for this rather massive project. We hope you enjoy it!

If you want to check out any of our solo works, you can find us under the following names here, on Ao3, or tumblr: airamcg, CompletelyDifferent/Dragon Elexus, CoreyWW, Crooked_Mantis, DrJekyl, Swordtheguy, TheBlindBandit/Oathkeeper-of-Tarth.


	2. Wondering When I'm Coming Back

_Chapter Summary:_ Pearl freezes. Amethyst leaps. Garnet takes action. Steven can't decide.

 **Chapter One**  
 **Wondering When I'm Coming Back**

The sound of a shattering teacup cut through the silence.

Garnet glanced at the direction it came from. Pearl had knocked it off the edge of the table when she whipped around to see who had warped in. Normally, she would've been able to catch the cup before it hit the floor, but instead she seemed too shocked to do anything other than stare.

Considering who was standing before them, Garnet couldn't blame her.

 _Rose Quartz_ was inside their home. As if she had simply come back from a mission. As if she hadn't been _gone_ for the past fourteen years.

 _Rose Quartz_ was smiling as she looked at them all, large tears streaming down her cheeks, soft sobs leaving her lips.

 _Rose Quartz_ was...

She stepped off the warp pad, her hands fidgeting behind her back until something seemed to slip off her arms. She strode across the floor, the scorched edges of her skirt brushing against the wood, and stopped in front of Pearl.

Pearl shakily got to her feet, as if braving a storm of shock and incredulity coming at her in waves. Rose seemed to be equally stunned, equally vulnerable, staring at Pearl as if seeing her for the first time. A trembling hand swept away a couple of peach locks from Pearl's eyes, fingers lightly brushing against Pearl's gem, before Rose let her hands fall on Pearl's shoulders. The way she clutched at them seemed almost desperate, thumbs anxiously caressing at the prominent, delicate clavicles. Her hands then smoothed all the way down Pearl's sides to encircle her slender waist. At that moment, Rose's expression shifted to one of hunger. She lifted the smaller gem off her feet and started peppering kisses all over Pearl's face— her cheeks, her lips, her neck— with a need Garnet hadn't seen from Rose in a very long time.

As for Pearl, she had gone rigid in the embrace, back muscles taut like a violin string about to snap. Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides, as if she couldn't decide if she wanted to shove Rose away or hug her back. Even without seeing her face, it was easy for Garnet to imagine what kind of expression she wore at that moment. Glancing to her right, it seemed Amethyst had reached the exact same conclusion. Steven, seated on Garnet's other side, seemed uncertain as to how he should react. He kept looking from the pair to Amethyst to Garnet and then back again, wide eyes searching for guidance. Of course, he'd never seen his mother and Pearl _together_ , in their good times. He'd never really seen them at all.

And then...

 _This doesn't feel right._

The sound of a shattering teacup cut through the silence.

Garnet glanced at Pearl, who was seated once more, hands over her mouth to stifle a gasp. Beside her, Amethyst was on her feet, openly gaping at the Gem intruding on their home.

"Rose?" Amethyst stepped towards her, hesitant, unsure. "No, it can't be..."

The intruder had the same kind smile as Rose Quartz, the same mass of pink curls, the same white dress with the star cutout around the gem on her belly. It could've been another Rose Quartz, could've been another of Homeworld's cruel tricks...

But Gems possessed an innate ability to discern another's resonance— to feel another Gem's unique _Song_ reverberating from the core of their being. There may have been a subtle, almost imperceptible difference in tempo, but there were no two ways about it:

It was Rose— _their_ Rose.

Across the table, Pearl began to tremble, biting down on the knuckles of one hand in a futile attempt to hold back tears. Steven seemed uncertain as to how he should react, glancing from Garnet to Pearl to Amethyst and then back again, before slowly getting to his feet and taking a hesitant step forward. Of course, he'd never really seen his mother before.

Amethyst let out a cry of joy as she launched herself into the air towards the much larger Gem, arms and legs spread wide with every intention to glomp. Rose Quartz laughed and dropped everything in a scramble to catch her.

Something solid and metallic thunked against the warp pad.

And then…

 _Something is_ definitely _wrong here._

At the sound of a shattering teacup, Garnet leapt across the table, her gauntlets forming over her hands. As soon as she landed, she fell into a wide horse stance, poised to fight. Behind her visor, all three eyes were trained on Rose's left side, at the weapon strapped to her arm.

It was a solid block of metal with a large pointed stake running through its length. It resembled a modern human tool used on roads— a tool for shattering. A _jackhammer_. Yes, that was the word Steven had used when he told them about what happened between him and Bismuth in the forge.

—the word he used when he told them about the _Breaking Point_.

Garnet opened her mouth to speak. Behind her, she heard the grating of wood against wood as chairs were thrust away from the table, followed by the high-pitched hum of weapons being summoned.

And then…

Nothing.

 _Nothing_ , except a slight tremor in her hands.

There were so many things she needed to know, so many answers she wanted to find. But even with Future Vision, nothing was forthcoming. No matter how many times she tried to scan the possibilities, everything came in fragmentary, uncontrolled flashes— nothing like the coherent narrative she was accustomed to Seeing. They also never lasted longer than a few seconds before they fizzled into something like television static. It didn't make any sense.

It was as if something— or _someone_ — was interfering with her abilities.

The teacup had already been reduced to shattered remains by the time Garnet closed her third eye and returned to the present. To her left, Steven had risen to his feet and taken a step towards the warp pad. Instinctively, she placed a hand on his shoulder; whether it was to assure him or to stop him from going further, she wasn't sure. When he gently patted her hand, however, she let go. Maybe _she_ was the one who needed reassuring.

"M-Mom?" asked Steven, his small voice sounding curious, almost hopeful.

"Yes?" Rose had been looking all over the house, as if taking stock of every little detail. But when Steven spoke, she blinked at him as if suddenly remembering where she was. "Yes, I am your... your mother."

Behind her back, she discreetly slid off the Breaking Point from her arm. Steven didn't seem to notice. Or perhaps he was actively ignoring it for the more important matter at hand, which was Rose Quartz carefully stepping off the warp pad inside their home.

Rose gave him a magnanimous smile, the same one she used to give the thousands of Crystal Gems not under her personal command.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"You don't know?" Steven's voice cracked.

Rose slowly shook her head, before puffing out a slightly hysterical sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

"Unfortunately, no." Her expression seemed to falter then, voice turning wistful and eyes glazing over. "I– We– _I_ had some ideas..."

Steven shot a quick, unsure glance back at Garnet, almost as if he were asking for permission. No, perhaps he needed reassurance for this after all.

She gave him a small nod.

He turned back towards Rose.

"It's Steven."

"Steven..." she repeated, her lips rolling around the word as if to test how it fit in her mouth. " _Steven._ "

They stared at each other, as if sizing each other up for... something. For what, specifically, was unclear to Garnet. While both of them held wide-eyed gazes at each other, their expressions drastically differed. Steven's face lit up with his earnest fascination and thirst to know more about the Gem before him. Rose's, however, seemed shrouded; as if she had just stepped on a trick tile inside a dungeon, and she could only agonize over whether she had triggered a death trap or was still safe to keep going. The pause in their exchange stretched out far longer than what should be conversationally normal, and it would probably go on indefinitely unless somebody gave in first.

"Uuuggghhh! Are we all just gonna stare at each other all night?!" Amethyst groaned loudly, a few soap bubbles floating out of her mouth. "C'mon, you guys! Don't you think this is even the _least_ bit suspicious? I mean, we were just having a nice little dinner and then all of a sudden it's like the Ghost of Winters Past has come to haunt us!"

"Amethyst!" cried Steven, in the same tone Pearl would use when deliberately breaking plates were involved. The current situation was about more than a few plates, however.

Amethyst shook her head, ignoring Steven. Instead, she directly addressed the intruding Gem. "Look, I don't know who you are, but you can't be Rose, okay? You just _can't_ be!"

"It's her," Garnet decided to cut in. "You _know_ it's her, Amethyst."

"But Garnet!" She whipped around to look to their leader, her expression pleading for either a confirmation or a denial. But Garnet couldn't tell for what, exactly. "Rose is—! And Steven is—!" continued Amethyst, but words were failing her. Instead, she started gesticulating wildly between all of them, the conflicting emotions on her face growing more tempestuous the longer she did so, until she couldn't take it anymore. She whirled at the last remaining Gem at the table, blurting out, "Pearl! Aren'tcha gonna say _nothing_ about this?!"

Throughout it all, ever since Rose had warped in, Pearl had stayed in her seat— hands over her mouth, eyes welled up in tears. She hadn't reacted at all when she had nudged the teacup off the table, not even when tea had spilled all over her feet and soaked through her shoes. She even seemed to have stopped breathing (not that she needed to breathe), until the moment she rasped out what everyone else was thinking, her voice barely audible:

"Prove it."

At first, Pearl seemed surprised at herself for having spoken at all, but a quick scan of her family's faces emboldened her. She stood up and took a step forward, her voice growing louder and more determined with each word.

"Prove to m–to _us_ , that you _are_ Rose Quartz. Say something only she would know, l-like... Like, where did we first draft the manifesto?"

"The waterfall cave," murmured Rose. She seemed hesitant despite the immediate answer, but once she started elaborating, she grew more at ease under everyone else's scrutiny. "In the archipelago humans call Maharlika, there's a waterfall with a lagoon at its feet; and a cave perfectly hidden behind it. That's where we wrote it." She gazed at Pearl, and then at Garnet, her expression turning soft. There was history behind that gaze— more than a few millennia's worth. "But I always preferred the outside. When the sunlight caught the spray just right, the waterfall would light up in a dozen colours. I remember when we first fused... Rainbow Quartz couldn't take her eyes off of it."

Garnet remembered that place vividly. The cave wasn't all that large, but it had enough space for three Gems. From inside, they could hear the water rumbling— loud and deep and continuous, it almost sounded like music. She'd been teaching Pearl and Rose how to fuse that time, and after one of their many attempts, they had succeeded. Unfortunately, Rainbow Quartz had been too new a Gem and hadn't even known how to walk yet. She'd slipped on some organic green stuff and slid straight out of the cave and into the lagoon. Panicked, Garnet had jumped after her, right into the water.

Through the loud splashing, giddy laughter had greeted Garnet's ears. Rainbow had been floating on her back, her limbs stroking the water so that she could move around. All four of her eyes had sparkled as she'd absorbed all the new sensations she was experiencing— the afternoon sun shining through the foliage, cool water sloshing all around her body, the scent of nearby vegetation reaching her nose. She had taken it all in, inhaling deeply as if she could breathe in even the sights and sounds. Then she'd spread her arms as wide as she could, as if welcoming herself into this inviting new world.

Something warm had trickled down Garnet's face as she, too, started to laugh alongside Rainbow. Maybe it'd been just the water mixed with the heat of the sun. Or maybe they'd been tears of joy. Rainbow had been the first mixed fusion besides herself, after all.

Snapping back to the present, Garnet exchanged a meaningful look with Pearl, whose welled-up tears had finally broken free. Garnet's eyes were getting a little misty as well. They were the only ones who knew about that place and that moment.

"H-how, Rose?" asked Pearl, still weeping. "How is this even _possible_?"

Rose regarded her with the level of reverence and awe Garnet had been used to seeing on Pearl's face during the early decades of the rebellion. It was the same face Pearl had worn whenever she would kneel down to take Rose's hand, swearing allegiance and love with all her heart, body, and gem.

"I'm not quite sure myself," Rose softly replied.

"You must have _some_ idea." Garnet didn't mean to sound accusing, but all the same. She kept Looking into the future, searching for the most effective responses, for the best possible outcomes. Nothing but dead end after staticky dead end. It only left her feeling frustrated and disoriented. Even if the Gem before them was truly their Rose Quartz, there were still too many unknown factors at play. Even without her Future Vision on the fritz, she didn't know enough about the circumstances to trust that everything would turn out safely.

"Well, I did use this." Rose held out her right hand, showing everyone the object she was clutching.

"Is that the Time Thing?" asked Steven, bouncing on his toes for a closer look.

He was only half-right. It was indeed the Glass of Time, only it had been heavily modified. Its once clear glass now seemed to have translucent rainbow swirls moving around, much like the soap bubbles Amethyst kept blowing out. Surrounding it was a contraption that resembled a spherical bird cage. Several thin wires ran parallel to each other, vertically connecting the upper plate (which bore a familiar star) to the base that seemed to be the main part. It was made of the same material as warp pads, only much thinner and shaped like a bowl. The front part had several gear cogs surrounding a small keyhole, while the rest had gem writing scribbled all over. Rose's fingers were covering most of the characters, however, so Garnet could only read a few words:

— _go home again._

"It looks different," said Garnet.

Rose nodded. "Where—no, _when_ I'm from, Homeworld came back and things got… 'pretty bad' is putting it lightly. So I tried to change things for the better." Her gaze roamed all around their home once more, but slower this time, as if she was admiring the view. In the end, her eyes settled on Steven. "And from the looks of it, I guess it worked."

"Wooooow!" breathed out Steven, his eyes sparkling from the amount of awe he was exuding. "You're like Wolfin from that Past of Future Days movie!"

"That is..." Rose quirked her head, clearly not getting the reference. "...one way of putting it."

"Does that mean you're gonna stay with us from now on?!"

She gave Steven another smile, but this time it resembled the one she used to wear around the various humans she'd interacted with throughout the centuries.

"If that's what you want."

"Of course! It's going to be great!"

He ran up to her, wrapping his arms around her frayed skirt as tightly as he could. He then turned around to beam at the rest of the Gems, but the glee on his face wavered at what he saw.

Pearl was digging her fingers into her arms, clutching as if to hug herself. She refused to look directly at anyone, her eyes seemingly glazed over as if she was too deep in thought to bother with any of them at the moment. Amethyst was staring at her, lips pursed and brows creased in concern. She took a step towards Pearl, a hand reaching out, perhaps to touch or to comfort, but ultimately shying away. And then she, too, seemed to withdraw into herself, growing much too quiet than usual.

As for Garnet, she felt... ambivalent. Another tremor was running through her hands. It was miniscule compared to the one earlier, but the source of it was much more troubling. This wasn't the trembling of a worried Gem, but rather, the vibrations of her components going out of sync. A part of her felt happy about all this. Against all odds, Rose Quartz had come back to them, and they didn't even need to go through the heartbreak of losing Steven in the process. On the other hand, another part of her was dubious. After Bismuth and Lion and everything else, she couldn't help but wonder what Rose was hiding from them this time.

The most concerning thing was that she couldn't tell which of those feelings came from Ruby and which came from Sapphire. Or if perhaps they were all Garnet.

"Uh, guys?" Steven was looking up at them, all of his previous excitement giving way to concern.

 _That won't do,_ thought Garnet. A worried Steven could easily turn into a sad Steven, and they couldn't have that.

It was down to her, and it felt odd, to be acting so purposefully and deliberately in her role as their leader and pillar when confronted with the one she'd had to take that particular mantle from. She tried to put on her best smile but it felt too stiff on her lips, as if her face had turned into Alexandrite's mask-like visage. So for good measure, she decided to somersault over the table towards the embracing pair, her arms spread wide as she landed. "Welcome back, Rose."

As she went in to join them, Garnet glimpsed a smile returning to Steven's face. And then she, too, felt her own smile become genuine.

But only for the briefest moment.

Hugging Rose Quartz was familiar. Hugging Steven was familiar. Both of them at the same time, however, was something else; and Garnet didn't know how to fit into that hug. It was like trying to put puzzle pieces together, but they didn't quite fit the way they should.

Her eyes fell on The Breaking Point tethering at the edge of the warp pad, as if it had been kicked in an attempt to hide it out of sight, but hadn't quite made it. _That_ made her smile completely vanish.

"C'mon, guys! It's Hug Time!" Steven piped up, wiggling between the two bigger Gems and disrupting Garnet's thoughts. He beckoned at Amethyst and Pearl, probably even pulling his trademark puppy dog eyes on them. Garnet couldn't see his face from this angle, but she could see the struggle on Amethyst's face. A battle of wills against Steven's weaponized cuteness was no joke.

In the end, Amethyst hopped over to them, one arm wrapping around Steven's shoulders, the other around Garnet's waist. A significant gap lingered between her and Rose. Amethyst was never one to hide her emotions from her face or her actions, so it was more than a little telling how she avoided touching Rose.

Pearl, however, was more inclined to run and hide when dealing with intense emotions, so it wouldn't have been surprising had she bolted out the door at some point. But she didn't. She joined the rest of them, albeit reluctantly; one hand drifting to Rose, touching, but barely just. The most 'running away' she did was to refuse looking at anyone by burying her face between Garnet's shoulder blades.

They— Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl— had been doing family things with Steven for several years now. They'd had a lot of time to master the art of wrapping around someone, just firmly enough to be comforting but not too much to be suffocating. At some point, Garnet had realized giving and receiving heartfelt hugs was like putting on armor, only much softer and warmer to touch. It protected against sadness and kept loneliness at bay.

But as they huddled together in this one, it felt nothing like what Garnet was used to. Elbows dug into her side like thorns, and arms draped heavily over tense shoulders. The gaps between individual bodies left her feeling cold.

The hug stretched on, moment after moment after moment; none of them quite willing— or quite sure how— to end it.

That was, until Steven started wiggling between them once more, his little head popping up from the tangle of arms.

"OH-EM-GEEEEEEE—!" he cried. "We have to tell Dad!"

"—have to tell your...?" Pearl echoed absently, before gasping out, " _Greg!_ "

She jolted away from the group, looking much like a deer caught in headlights as everyone stared. She cleared her throat, waving away everyone else's confusion with one hand as she unnecessarily rearranged her clothes with the other. "Yes, well... Yes, Steven, you do that while I... Why don't I go ahead a-and meet you all there? Yes, I–ahhh... I need some air right now."

At that, Pearl rushed out the door as if a two-headed Gem monster was snapping at her heels.

"Tell Dad we'll be there in a bit!" Steven called after her.

Garnet watched Pearl's back disappear from view. She had been observing the budding friendship between Pearl and Greg for some time now, gleaning for how it was coming along whenever she went on missions with Pearl or played tennis with Greg. They had never gotten along so well before, despite the Gems being a part of Greg's family unit for almost a third of his human life. But lately, Garnet was pleased with the developments. After all, this was important— not only for Steven, but for themselves— and it had been a long time coming.

She glanced up at Rose— the inadvertent barrier that had separated Pearl and Greg for so long. When Rose had... _gone away_ in order to have Steven, the dynamics between everyone she had left behind had drastically changed. And now that she was back, Garnet couldn't help wondering how everything would change once more.

Rose was watching Pearl's back disappear from view. She seemed at a loss about that, for some reason.

Garnet watched Rose watch Pearl disappear from view.

The group had disbanded from the hug right then. Steven was tugging Rose all over the house, showing her his toys, books, and video games, while gushing about all the things he was looking forward to now that Rose was here with them. As for Amethyst, she was leaning against the kitchen counter, finishing off what was left of their dinner, her eyes narrowed as she watched the mother-and-son bonding.

Garnet turned away from the scene and headed to the warp pad— to where the Breaking Point lay abandoned. Some pungent, burnt scent wafted to her nose as she bent down to bubble it away. She didn't like the idea of such a weapon floating inside the Burning Room with Bismuth and the corrupted gems, even if only temporarily, but it was much better than having it lying around the house.

"Garnet?" called Steven. He was standing right by the open screen door, his hand in Rose's. "I'm– Mom and I are going to Dad's, okay?"

"I'm coming with you," Garnet replied. "You too, Amethyst."

She shot a look at Amethyst, who scowled but otherwise didn't protest.

They all filed out of the house, shutting the door behind them.

oOoOoOo

 **Authors' Note:**  
Alternative Title: The Most Awkward Group Hug Ever (TM)  
Alternative Summary: Steven and the Gems meet an old friend. Drama ensues.


	3. Could Never Be Ready

_Chapter Summary:_ Car washing takes a back-seat.  
 _Content Warning_ : Anxiety and pregnancy.

 **Chapter Two**  
 **Could Never Be Ready**

The best thing about washing cars had always been the sense of relaxation that came with it. The sound of rushing water, the floral smell of soap, the repetitive motions, the sheer satisfaction of watching a car become steadily cleaner and cleaner. It was even more relaxing now that Greg didn't have to obsess about each and every job because a single unhappy customer could ruin his bottom line for the month. Now, he could just slip on some headphones, put on some sweet jams, and zone out.

Which was why he didn't notice anyone shouting his name until that someone was literally next to his ear yelling, " _Greg, Greg_!"

"Huh, what?" Greg blinked at Pearl, pulling off his headphones. "Pearl? What's up? Is… something wrong?"

It _looked_ like something was wrong. Pearl's face was flushed, panicked. She didn't have her weapon out, but—

Greg got ready to run. "Is something happening? Is there a monster?"

Pearl shook her head frantically, wild-eyed. "No– it's her! She's _back_!"

Slowly and carefully Greg turned to properly face the Gem.

"Pearl, calm down. _Who's_ back?"

Pearl didn't answer, just released a strangled sort of noise and made some indecipherable gesture with her hands. Greg was just about to try coaxing something more out of her, when—

" _Greg_."

The new voice sent an electric shock straight down Greg's spine.

He spun, and stared. She was there, in the dim evening light— Rose Quartz, as radiant and beautiful as the day she died.

 _Steven_ , Greg thought, _No, Steven—_

But Steven was _there_ , right at her side, holding her hand. He was smiling.

"A-Amethyst?" said Greg, but no. This Rose wasn't purple, she had no gemstone at her breast, she was all brilliant pink and white. And anyway, there was Amethyst behind her, and Garnet too, and— "What's _going on_?"

Rose didn't answer. She just rushed forward, and picked him up, right up like he weighed no more than a pillow. Next thing Greg knew he was holding her face, staring into her eyes, his lips pressing against hers. She tasted sweet, like flowers and sunlight, and oh, he'd almost forgotten that taste. She was soft, gentle, like she'd always been, so afraid of hurting him… but there was something there beneath the restraint, something fierce and desperate—

Finally they parted, Greg gasping for breath. He stared at her in wonder.

"I came back for you," Rose said. "For all of you."

Quite suddenly, Greg felt very aware of himself. Of his greying hair, of his belly paunch, of the aches in his joints. He rubbed his neck.

"Well, I hope I, uh, didn't disappoint."

"Oh, _Mr. Universe_. You never could."

She gave him a slow, smouldering smile, ending with a playful wink. Greg couldn't help but smile back up at her— but as she placed him back on the ground, his stomach lurched and reality reasserted himself. He turned and sprinted towards his son, grabbing him by his shoulders. Steven _looked_ fine, but...

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Dad."

Steven lifted up his shirt in demonstration, and there his gemstone was, glittering in the dim evening light.

Greg let out a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding, but still looked to the Gems for some help. He'd never much understood various magic stuff, but he had at least a handle on the basics of their biology (geology?), and this didn't make any sense. How could there be _two_ identical rose quartz gemstones?

If the Gems had any explanation to offer him, they didn't give it. Garnet was unreadable behind her glasses. Amethyst just shrugged. Pearl stood a little to the side, her arms clutched tight to her chest, looking everywhere but at Rose.

Yeah. Greg was understanding some of her earlier panic now. This… this was baffling. Completely and utterly and… Greg wasn't entirely sure what to think. It was like being in a dream.

Maybe this _was_ a dream? It felt very real but… maybe a _magical_ dream? Those could happen, right? Or maybe this was something else… With all the weird powers and space doo-dads the Gems had left lying around the planet, what with shape-shifting and holograms, it was possible. More possible, surely, than someone coming back from the dead. Was– was the woman he'd just kissed an _imposter_?

No. _No_. The Gems– they would have thought of all of that, too. And they had known Rose for longer than he had, _millennia_ longer. They wouldn't be here unless they were _certain_ this was her. Pearl wouldn't be on the verge of tears, wouldn't have rushed all this way to give him some kind of warning—

"This is happening," Greg said, stepping back from the shock. "This is really happening…" He shook himself, pulled at his hair. "I can't believe this! I– we've got so much to talk about! We have so much to tell you, so much to show you—" Greg started towards the van, then stopped when he noticed the hose in his hand. "Just let me finish this first…"

He gave the car (a nice blue Chevvy) one last spray, then flung the hose over his shoulder.

"Done!"

Now he sped off to the van, diving right into the clutter, pulling the door closed behind him. He felt a pang of embarrassment— he should have cleaned up— but then, why would he have had any reason to? And it wasn't like Rose had ever minded before. And right now, he could hear her giggling with amusement, and Steven was chuckling, too—

Steven. Steven had _met his mother_. Greg had never thought– _never_ thought Steven would have this chance—

He still remembered the conversation they'd had, not long after they'd first discovered Rose was pregnant. It had taken a while to notice— the first sign of pregnancy was usually a missed period, but Rose, of course, had never gotten those, even after she had made herself a uterus. So instead the first signs had been Rose gaining a sudden, fierce appetite, as well as accompanying bouts of nausea. They'd noticed her belly was, perhaps, a little larger than usual. And they'd gone to an obstetrician— one of the strangest, most unbelievable doctor appointments in Greg's whole life— and they'd done an ultrasound. And yes, there it had been, a staticky image of white against black, the first images of the fetus which would one day grow into Steven...

He'd been elated, jubilant, at first, and so had Rose. They'd hoped, and hoped, and tried and experimented, but neither of them had been sure if it would work— but it _had._ They were actually going to have a _baby_.

It was only after they'd driven back to Beach City that Rose had grown more sombre. More serious.

"Greg," she'd said, "There's something you should know. I suspect that if I have this child… They'll end up having my gemstone."

There had been seemingly endless discussions after that. Just the two of them, together, and then with the Gems. Those discussions had become more like arguments, sometimes, while at others Greg had thought the Gems didn't really understand, not really, what Steven's birth would mean for Rose's existence.

Even on the day of the birth itself, a sense of unreality seemed to cling to everything. Rose had lain on the Temple floor, on top of towels and blankets, propped up by pillows. She'd been smiling, even though that smile had been taut with pain. Pearl had drifted around her in anxious circles, before being unable to stand it anymore and gone running off. Amethyst had been jumping around like a puppy, or a kid waiting for a magician to pull a neat trick. Greg had sat by Rose's side, heaps of books about childbirth laying open around him. Rose had been clutching Garnet by the arm, grip tightening with each contraction. Greg had felt that should have been his job, _he_ should have been there to provide comfort, but even then, Rose had been afraid of hurting him.

In the end, Greg hadn't seen how it'd happened. There'd been a bright burst of pink light, so bright it had left him blinded. And then, lying in the middle of the pillows and blankets, there'd been a little baby. A gemstone where its umbilical cord should have been, but otherwise normal, still covered in blood, his eyes scrunched closed, his mouth open as he wailed and wailed and _wailed_ —

Greg'd picked the baby up, cleaned him, and hugged him. It hadn't been until much later he'd truly realized Rose was gone. It had hit him like a truck, and he'd cried for what felt like forever.

Now Greg fell against the wall of the van, struggling for breath. Rose had been gone, been gone for over _fourteen_ years—

—and now she was back.

He was like that for a while, half-standing, half-crouching, lungs wheezing. Finally, he got control of himself, enough to find a half-buried water bottle. He splashed it over his face. The cold shocked him, forcing himself to blink and shake himself. He drank the water that remained in a single, long gulp. It helped.

Eventually, he caught his breath again. Rose was back. Rose was back, and that was _good_. That was... _wonderful_.

His shirt was drenched, but that was fine. Greg pulled it off, and changed into his cherry sweater— oh, Rose had always liked cherries, she'd be delighted! Then he rummaged around among the mess, until he managed to find a big hard cover book. _Steven's Birthday Album_. Perfect. He grabbed a few more things— a couple of framed pictures, his guitar— and headed back out.

They had fourteen years to catch up on.

oOoOoOo

 **Author's Note:** At this point we've seriously considered summarizing each chapter as 'Character X is Not Coping'.


	4. Fight, Flight or Love

_Summary:_ Pearl would be the first to admit that she's never been very good at dealing with change, even changes she had thought she'd wanted.

 **Chapter Three  
Fight, Flight or Love**

Pearl had more or less cried herself out by the time Garnet appeared in her room.

It was stupid, she knew. She had wanted this for so long! Wanted her back. Wanted _Rose_. And now that she was-

Tiny ripples in the water's tranquil surface ran ahead of Garnet's measured footsteps. Pearl focused on them as they reached her and reflected off her small platform, on the way they met and interfered with each other, some cancelling each other out, but more simply colliding out of phase, increasing the overall level of turbulence exponentially until everything slipped and hissed over the edge of the waterfall.

Chaos. One unexpected, out of place footstep and the calm, predictable patterns became something entirely new and unknown.

"Pearl."

It was a greeting, not a question, but Pearl answered it anyway.

"You don't need to worry," she said, and offered up a wan smile. "I'm fine."

"That's a lie," Garnet replied evenly. "And not a very good one."

It wasn't worth arguing the point. Not with Garnet. Not when Pearl had seized the very first opportunity that had presented itself to flee the car wash and the reunion and everything it entailed. Not when a glance at Pearl's own reflection in the pool's rapidly stilling surface revealed haggard red eyes and cheeks that were paler than usual.

"Sorry. I'm just… I don't-"

 _Rose_. It was _Rose_. _Rose Quartz_. Back in the Temple, back with them, back where she belonged.

Pearl would know her anywhere. Any _when_. The cut of her gem, the shine of its facets, the way it caught the light, drew the eye towards the brilliant pink fire within. The soft curves of her body, of her lips. Her dark, expressive eyes. The curled, tangled, glorious mess of her hair. And the way she'd spoken about the waterfall, the lagoon, her sweet voice warm and reverent with memory...

 _Oh_ , Rose's dark eyes had _searched_ until they'd found hers and _locked_. And then she'd _smiled_ , just a small quirk up of her lips, and Pearl had known that they were remembering the same moment, when the shock of fusing and fright of falling and the _impact_ of water had given way to awe, even joy, for the bluest of skies above, the very air alive with color, light refracted into the rainbow that was their namesake...

Even without all of that, Pearl could _feel_ her again, feel her from the moment she had appeared on the warp pad. She'd all but forgotten the sheer level of presence Rose possessed. Steven had the same Song, of course, but muted, muffled by the organic matter hosting his gem, much like an artefact. It pulsed in time with his heart, if you were close enough to listen for it, but you _did_ have to be close.

 _Stars_ , she had only just become used to the idea of that, of not being able to still the waters in her room and just _listen_ , taking comfort simply in the knowledge that Rose was nearby.

"I never expected this," she whispered. "I thought, perhaps, if Steven were– If he were– If he-"

If Steven died.

She couldn't quite bring herself to say the words. Garnet understood anyway.

"Yes. It's always been a possibility. An unlikely one."

Pearl hugged her knees more tightly to her chest.

There had been a time once, maybe twice, when she'd thought that 'unlikely' was a better chance than 'none', that the exchange of Steven for Rose might have been worth it. Thinking of it now added a bite of guilt, the taste of something bitter and rotten in her mouth. Steven was special, and important, and his own person, just as deserving of life as anyone else. Pearl had come to love him with all of her being, as much– if differently– as she had ever loved his mother.

"I never thought we could have them _both_ ," she said, and heard her voice catch, the stinging pressure building behind her eyes again. "I should be happy! Instead, I feel—"

"Lost," Garnet supplied again. "Overwhelmed. Uncertain."

Pearl nodded, not quite trusting her voice anymore. Garnet sighed.

"Me too."

Her visor vanished with a flick of her hand, and she sat herself down, cross-legged, beside Pearl in one fluid motion.

"We– I never Saw anything like this," Garnet continued, voice soft and slow. "Not in the wildest, strangest possibilities imaginable."

There had been other events, outliers, things so extremely improbable, so utterly unimaginable that they had only been able to look for the signs foreshadowing them in hindsight. Some had been welcome surprises. Amethyst, for one. None of the three of them had dreamed that they'd find a little overbaked quartz, half wild and desperately lonely, in the ruins of the Prime Kindergarten.

Other outliers had not.

"Garnet," Pearl said, "you can only See what you know to look for. You know that. Ruby and Sapphire know that. You can't catch everything."

Pearl unfurled herself enough to reach out a hand towards Garnet but stopped midway. The last time Garnet's Sight had failed so badly was because of _her_ , and because she had known Garnet well enough, known how her mind and her Sight worked well enough to exploit their shadows and feed her own weakness. It was a relief when Garnet took it in one of her own and squeezed firmly, Ruby's gemstone warm against the back of her hand.

"It's not just that." Garnet looked down at her other hand, at Sapphire's gem. "I've tried Looking ahead, to see what this might mean. Everything has changed. Events, outcomes that I thought were fixed are in flux. Others are gone completely. There are so many new possibilities that I can't begin to comprehend them all." Her hand clenched, obscuring the gem. "It's like I've been drifting down a gentle river and suddenly found myself lost in an ocean full of storms."

Pearl gently adjusted Garnet's grip so that she could entwine their fingers.

Garnet had been a pillar of support for so long that it was hard to remember or even imagine a time without her. But she had been right, that day in the colony ship, that even she couldn't be strong all of the time. Sometimes Garnet needed to be able to falter, have someone support her, be strong for _her_ for a while. When Garnet had been young, new, uncertain, that someone had been Pearl, more often than not. Pearl had understood implicitly that Rose's enthusiasm could be as wearing as it was wonderful, and that her grand ideas rarely concerned themselves with practicalities or fine details.

She had always been a big-picture thinker, her Rose.

 _Is._

 _Rose_ is _a big picture thinker. Rose Quartz_ is _._

The thought was a thunderbolt, scattering the rest like butterflies in the strawberry fields. It took her a precious few moments to find them again, even with the knowledge that Garnet, face open and vulnerable, needed her. Give and take. She couldn't just _take_.

"Do you—"

When her voice cracked, she cleared her throat and tried again, this time with more certainty.

"Do you remember the first few days you spent with us?" she asked. "As you? You may as well have been a pebble fresh from the ground."

"I could barely walk," Garnet confirmed, with the barest hint of a wry smile. "And I was _very_ starstruck. With good reason, as it turned out."

Pearl felt a blush color her cheeks.

"Yes. Well." She tried to pull her hand away, only to find Garnet wouldn't let her. "I suppose I _was_ the 'terrifying renegade' back then."

"Still are."

Garnet's smile was broader and no longer wry, her words warm with pride and affection, and Pearl's blush intensified.

" _Flatterer_. But my point is: do you remember how you couldn't even summon your gauntlets without falling over?"

To Pearl's secret delight, Garnet's cheeks darkened ever so slightly.

"I do," she said.

"The parts of you that are Ruby and Sapphire had such different combat instincts that you couldn't work out what _you_ needed to do. It drove you to distraction."

"It did at that. And I remember what you told me when I got frustrated at my slow progress."

"'Small steps are still steps towards mastery'."

"Yes. It took time, and patience, and hard work. And support from good friends." Garnet squeezed her hand at the last. "But I got there in the end. And now I beat _you_ up when we spar."

Pearl rolled her eyes at the jibe— Garnet might have had power, certainly, but she didn't have Pearl's speed, flexibility or dexterity — but squeezed back.

"Only when I let you."

Garnet huffed lightly, as if to say 'unlikely', but elected not to press the issue any further. Pearl found she wasn't really in the mood for sparring either, verbal or otherwise.

They sat in silence for a time. Pearl breathed out slowly, in a futile attempt to release some more of her tension. When that failed to help, she willed some of the water beneath her become more fluid, and trailed her free hand through it. It was cold and refreshing and _grounding_ , fingers tracing figure eights in the water and watching the ripples they made. More turbulence. More chaos.

"I was _trying_ to move on, Garnet," she said. "I've stopped going to the Battlefield on my own, and I've been working with you and Amethyst and Steven and Connie and, stars, even _Greg_ , Things... really seemed like they were getting better. Easier. I have a girlfriend! She's _human_."

She wasn't sure if it was incredulity or frustration or something else entirely that drove her to smack her hand down against the water's surface, sending droplets flying.

"I was ready for it to be over. I _wanted_ it to be over. I wanted to try moving on."

"You _were_ moving on," Garnet corrected. "Small steps are still steps."

Pearl bit her lip and nodded.

She had wanted to stop hurting every time she thought of Rose. She'd wanted to be able to look up at Rose's portrait above the door in the morning and feel something other than aching emptiness. It would be… _nice_ to be able to go somewhere, see something, meet someone that reminded her of Rose and not feel like her gem had cracked. She didn't want the twisting, bitter jealousy of Greg back. She didn't want to return to years ago and the days when her fingers itched for her spear whenever she saw him, or any of Rose's other past paramours. She didn't want to spend yet more lonely nights wondering what she'd done wrong, wondering if she _was_ wrong.

She didn't want to do it all over again. She didn't think she _could_ do it all over again. But at the same time, just knowing that Rose was back, that Pearl could seek her out _right now_ if she wanted to, made every photon in her form, every atom in her gem long to do just that. Pearl had missed her. So very, very much.

"You still love Rose," Garnet said with surprising gentleness. "But you care for Sheena as well."

"Yes. And I don't want her to feel like she was just some kind of... placeholder. A stand-in for somebody better. I wouldn't want _anyone_ to feel like that."

Garnet sighed, and to Pearl's surprise, released her hand, only to wrap one long arm about her shoulders and pull her in close to Garnet's side.

"It's too late for things to be like they were," Garnet murmured, half to herself.

Pearl found herself nodding again. It was too late.

The knowledge came with a return of the stupid, _stupid_ thick, heavy feeling in her chest and throat, like she'd been punched, or was being crushed beneath some impossible weight. It was too late. Maybe it had always been too late.

And now, now her eyes were stinging too, and she just _knew_ that she was going to start crying again— and _stars above_ if she hadn't been ready to be done with all of _that_ too! She hated it. She _hated_ that the others couldn't trust her, that she couldn't trust _herself_ to be strong when she needed to be. That the wrong word, the right place, a flash of _that_ shade of pink, the smell of cherry blossoms or forest moss or rich, dark soil could set her body quivering, contending with emotions it wasn't meant to feel.

She wasn't going to cry. Not this time.

"And I think– no," she corrected thickly, clenching her fist as if that could push it all back down, "I _am_ angry with her. With Rose. I'm… _angry_ that she left me– left _us_. And I– I'm– I'm _furious_ that we keep finding things she kept from us. I thought I knew her! I thought I knew everything about her. I thought she _trusted_ me."

"I thought she trusted me too," Garnet said softly. "But then..."

She didn't need to say the word aloud for Pearl to get her meaning.

 _Bismuth._

"She was our friend. If Steven hadn't un-bubbled her by accident, we would never have known."

"Bismuth was a Crystal Gem _,"_ Garnet said, fist clenching. "We fought alongside her. She deserved better."

"She did. And we deserved to know. Not just us but... Do you remember how devastated Biggs was? She looked up to Bismuth so much. And Crazy Lace, and Snowflake, and everyone else. I don't think Lace smiled for a full century."

Suddenly more weary than she could remember being in decades, Pearl let her head rest against Garnet's shoulder.

"The Crystal Gems were supposed to be equals," she said. "Off of the battlefield, we were supposed to decide things _together_. That was the whole _point_."

It was the very central premise of the Doctrine of the Crystal Gems. All Gems were equal. All Gems were worthy of having a voice. No dictators. No Diamonds.

"I wonder…" Garnet said softly. "I wonder what else she decided for us."

"I wonder what else she's hiding. Time travel? Garnet, that weapon looked a lot like the _Breaking Point_ was supposed to."

"I saw. I've bubbled it. But I don't like having it in the Temple."

"Did she free Bismuth at some point and get her to make another?"

"It seems likely. Someone has modified the Glass of Time. It may have been her. It won't work as we expect it to."

"Her dress was singed. And her hair. She smelled like a battlefield."

They sat, silent and still for a time, both of them watching the endless mirror of water glide over the platform's edge. Two old soldiers and their reflections, tired, worried, and above all, heartsick.

"Garnet, how do we talk to her about this? Not just… secrets, but what's supposed to happen now? So much has changed. _We've_ changed."

"I don't know," Garnet. "I won't until I can See clearly again. But we may not be able to wait that long."

She sighed, re-materialised her visor and cocked her head to one side slightly, and Pearl knew that she was Looking, or at least trying to. Her lips drew together into the tight line that never boded well, and she got to her feet. Pearl sprang up beside her, alert for whatever threat she Saw coming.

"But we won't try tonight," Garnet added. "Emotions are too high. You're not ready, I need to re-focus, and Ruby and Sapphire have things they need to discuss."

She'd barely finished the words when a musical chime sounded, a simple melody that Pearl would know anywhere, one she had delighted upon hearing a million times in the past. One that, tonight, turned her body to ice and cut through to the very core of her being so thoroughly that her gem may as well have been cracked in half.

Rose was coming. And Garnet was right: she wasn't ready. Not for this. Not yet.

She could feel the beginnings of a hysterical laugh bubbling up as panic threatened to blossom. Her whole world upended in minutes, hours, and Rose was coming. She'd want to talk. She'd want to talk and maybe more and Pearl just couldn't right now. She wasn't ready. Not yet.

"Garnet—!"

"Take your phone and go out through Amethyst's room. I'll stall until you're clear. We'll talk again soon."

Pearl looked from her to the pink light cascading in from the open door to Rose's room.

Then she pulled her phone and bag from her gem, turned and fled.

oOoOo

 **Authors' Note:** Special thanks to CoreyWW, Crooked_Mantis, and SwordtheGuy, for all the writing, editing, and brainstorming help- among other shenanigans. They've mostly withdrawn from this story to focus on other projects, but they're still awesome and we encourage everyone to check their stories out.


	5. How It Felt To Be Us

_Chapter Summary:_ Amethyst spends a lot of her time rolling around in garbage. It's gross, but helps her notice when something smells fishy.

 **Chapter Four** **  
How It Felt To Be Us**

Amethyst sat on a pile of garbage in her room. She tossed and turned in the refuse, unable to calm down.

It just felt _unfair_. When Rose had shown up, she'd gazed at Pearl like she hadn't seen her in decades, gotten all misty eyed and poetic. Same with Garnet, too. Then was pretty much all about seeing Steven and Greg right away. And Amethyst had gotten…. Well, a hug. The same hug everyone had gotten.

And anyway, Amethyst hadn't really wanted it. She'd wanted... something else. What, she couldn't say. But this whole thing just felt... weird. Weird, and uncertain, and unsatisfying.

No, more than that, it didn't feel right. It just didn't feel like _Rose_. Not the same Rose who'd always held her close, and played with her, the one who'd always been there for her...

Something was _off_ about her. And nobody else seemed to realize it. Or if they did, they were too wrapped up in _feelings_ to deal with it. Not that Amethyst could blame them.

The Temple was all interconnected, and not in any obvious, clear way. That was one of Amethyst's favourite things about it. In here, space didn't always match up just right; gravity sometimes reversed itself; you could walk on water or make things appear out of thin air. Her own room was filled with portals— puddles that lead everywhere and anywhere. There were a number that lead into Pearl's room. They were great for all sorts of stuff: sneaking up on Pearl, grabbing stuff out of her room, or putting things in it. One time, Amethyst had dumped in twenty bath bombs at once. Even through the puddle Amethyst had been able to hear Pearl's uncomprehending shrieks of anger, and she'd laughed and laughed and _laughed_. She'd only just calmed down when Pearl had finally stalked into her room, covered in suds and sparkles, smelling like an explosion in a perfume factory, and that had set her off laughing again.

Tonight, Amethyst had spent a good twenty minutes lying next to that same puddle, listening to Pearl cry, until she hadn't been able to take it anymore, and stalked off.

She'd really thought about going to Pearl's room, to try to help her out— but she'd have no idea what to say. Besides, she was pretty sure Garnet was there, now.

Not that Garnet had come to comfort _her_.

Amethyst sighed and slid down the garbage pile. It didn't work very well. Her pants got caught on a bicycle spoke, and a few things came tumbling down after her— a spoon, a tattered book, a twisted slinky. Something heavy hit her on the head. Turned out to be a candle, all old and gloopy, the wick long since burned down.

Her room was full of things people had thrown away and forgotten about. Well, Amethyst certainly felt she belonged.

She leaned back against the dirt pile. She was happy to see Rose, but at the same time couldn't ignore that this whole thing felt… sketchy. Sure, she had to admit, it had been pretty nice seeing her again, and kinda sweet (if embarrassing) watching Rose meet up with Pearl and Greg again... but still— Ugh, it was like eating candy, then finding some sour rancid taste. The stuff that stuck to your tongue, like ballpen ink, and not the tasty kind.

When Rose had hugged her, there'd been a smell. Like barbecue. Charcoal, ash. Something else. Like farts, Amethyst had thought, even as she'd realized there was no way she could voice it aloud. But it was true. And that mixture of smells was familiar— Amethyst just couldn't place where she'd smelled it before.

What she did know, was that she had never smelled it on Rose. The worst thing Rose had ever smelled like was manure, when she'd been working in the garden, tending to the plants. Otherwise she'd always smelled like flowers, and strawberries, and fresh grass…

Amethyst got up. She felt like she was gonna explode, unless she talked to someone. Like, actually talked, not just go ' _oh golly gee what an unexpected but wonderful surprise_!' But who? Pearl was… busy, Garnet busy with her. Steven– okay, yeah, Steven had probably been the most excited of all of them, but he was smart. He'd get how weird this was. He'd listen.

But it was night— bedtime for Steven! And for, like, every human on this side of the planet. No Greg, no Vidalia, no _nobody_ …

That was, of course, the exact moment Pearl appeared in her room.

She was… well, a mess. She'd shown up by the waterfall, and clearly hadn't been paying much attention to keeping the water solid, because her shoes were soggy and her hair drooped with moisture. Her eyes were red. She wore this _brittle_ expression.

"Amethyst, I'm going out." From the way Pearl looked quickly over her shoulder, as if to see if she was being followed, Amethyst didn't have to ask why.

"I… sure. Right." Already Pearl was beginning to rush off, but Amethyst grabbed her by the hand, held her back. "Are you sure? That you'll be okay?"

Pearl softened a little. "I'll… I'll be fine. And I'll have my phone with me." Pearl patted at the prize pouch around her waist in demonstration. "I shouldn't be gone long, but if you need me…"

Amethyst nodded. "Yeah. Okay." Again, Amethyst wanted to say something— something important, or maybe even go with her— but the words couldn't quite come out, and they didn't have the time. Pearl pulled out of her grip as a portal appeared in the wall, a door leading into the shadowy darkness of Steven's room. Amethyst let her go, and kept staring until the portal sealed shut behind her.

 _Welp. Probably coulda handled that better._

She collapsed into another pile of garbage— this one built out of mattresses, cushions, and blankets, so it was one of her usual sleeping spots. She was rummaging around beneath one of the pillows for a bag of _Chaaaps!_ she'd hidden there, when a soft voice called out, "Amethyst?"

Amethyst jumped up so quickly she nearly triggered a trash-alanche.

Rose giggled softly as Amethyst struggled to prop the pile up. Amethyst fought with the garbage for a few moments, and once she was sure it was steady, turned to look properly at the (welcome? Unwelcome?) intruder. Rose seemed to drift through the garbage, graceful as a cloud. The burned patches of hair and dress were gone, Amethyst noticed, everything back to its usual pristine pink and white. Must've healed it.

"What're you doing here?" Amethyst asked.

"Looking for Pearl," said Rose. _Of course_ she was. "Have you seen her?"

Amethyst bit her lip. She didn't like lying to Rose. But…

"No," she said.

"Oh." Something like worry drifted across Rose's face. "I couldn't find her anywhere else in the Temple, not even her room. Where do you think she could have gone?"

Amethyst shrugged.

"Also, I was wondering," began Rose, "If you've seen…"

Amethyst waited a moment for Rose to finish, and when she didn't, prompted, "If I've seen _what_?"

Rose opened her mouth to say something, but then thought better of it. "Oh, nevermind. It's not important."

Somehow, Amethyst doubted that. But before she could press the point, Rose tilted her head and stepped closer. She asked, "How are you?"

What kind of question was _that_?

"Fine," Amethyst said.

Rose gave her a long, searching look, then smiled. "I like your new form."

"Huh?"

"It's very pretty," Rose said. "I've never seen you in white before. It suits you."

Amethyst stiffened. "Really? You've never seen me like this?

"No. Last I saw you, you were in purple. A long sweater, with human jeans, all torn up at the knees, just like Greg's." Rose bent down to give Amethyst a closer look. "You have patches there now, I see. Shaped like stars. You all seem to wear them now."

"Uh. Yeah," said Amethyst, shifting uncomfortably. "We started doing that after you, um... Died."

"Ah."

"I was… I was thinking about you. When I came back like this."

Rose's eyes went wide. "You were?"

"Yeah." Amethyst's foot scuffed at the ground. Sorta. Mostly, she hadn't been thinking about much at all, beyond terrified screaming, screaming, screaming, _have to get back, have to protect them, have to protect Steven and Connie, have to save them…_

But just below the screaming she'd heard Rose's voice, echoing: " _You're perfect just the way you are._ " She'd pictured Rose in her mind's eye, tall and elegant and powerful, and had wished she could be that– had known that was what she would _need_ to be, if she was going to save her friends—

Not that they had needed saving.

Rose reached forward, and ruffled Amethyst's hair in a familiar, comforting gesture. Amethyst found herself leaning into it automatically, and at some point it transformed into a proper hug, Rose's huge steady mass wrapping around her smaller body. Rose was soft, and sorta warm, comfortable, and comforting— and she _did_ still smell of flowers, and strawberries, and fresh grass.

But… Maybe Amethyst was still imagining it, but the charred smell was still there, beneath everything else.

The hug didn't last long. Amethyst wriggled out, and Rose straightened, floofing out her skirts in a single fluid movement. And then they just... stood there.

This was the point where, before, one of them would come up with something to do. Go ice skating. Throw paint at the walls. Get into a shapeshift-off. Maybe even just start throwing sticks, and have Amethyst chase after them.

But Rose didn't suggest any of that. And Amethyst couldn't bring herself to suggest it herself. That wasn't supposed to be her job.

Instead, Rose said, "Well, if you do see Pearl, do tell her I'll be in my room?" And then her eyes lit up with a familiar excited glow. "I'll be out in a few hours for breakfast. _Breakfast_ with Steven and Greg!"

She leapt and floated up over the garbage, over to the nearest portal to her room. Amethyst watched her disappear into the pink clouds.

She looked like Rose Quartz. She sounded like Rose Quartz. She talked like Rose Quartz. She knew things only Rose Quartz could know. There was no denying it: she was Rose Quartz.

But _their_ Rose Quartz? Amethyst wasn't so sure.


	6. Hello House!

_Chapter Summary_ : A nuclear family may not be radioactive, but that doesn't mean something's not about to blow.

 **Chapter Five**  
 **Hello House!**

Sunlight streamed through the loft's wide windows and slowly managed to creep into Steven's mind, pulling him towards wakefulness. He resisted it, snuggling deeper into the warm covers. He was deeply, deeply comfortable, and anyway, he'd been having the nicest dream…

Steven grasped at the dream, expecting it to begin fading as most dreams did, but instead it merely became clearer. His Mom appearing, and hugging him, and Pearl crying, and Dad…

… and…

 _Wait_.

Steven grabbed at the blankets and sat up, head spinning and—

And there she was, sitting cross-legged on the floor, turning one of his action figures over in her hands. She turned at the noise, giving him a smile brighter than the morning sun.

"You're awake!" she cried. "Greg, he's awake!"

"Stewball!" his Dad called from downstairs. "I'm making bacon pancakes! Wanna help?"

"Uh…" Steven began, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. Now that he was awake enough to process it, the smell wafting from the kitchen was overwhelmingly delicious. "Yeah, Dad, I'll be down in a bit… Just let me… uh…"

He trailed off, uncertain. Rose held out the action figure. "This is very cute," she said. "What is it?"

"It's a Peekichoo," said Steven. "It's a Pookamen, which is basically this game where you collect and fight monsters… Except, the monsters are really just like animals, and they get stronger by becoming friends with you. Peekichoo is really cool, it can shoot lightning, and you can get it to evolve…"

Steven wasn't sure why he was going on about this, of all things, but Rose— his _Mom_ — seemed pleased regardless as she smiled at the toy. She put it down, giving him a breezy comment about how he'd have to show her the game sometime, since it sounded very she jumped off the ledge and floated gracefully down into the living room below. Steven watched her go, then decided to jump after her. There was a moment of uncertainty when his stomach flipped, but as he watched his Dad reach up to plant a kiss on his Mom's cheek—

Well, it was like gravity didn't exist at all.

Steven landed lightly on the couch, his Mom watching him with stars in her eyes.

"Oh, look at you! Greg, Greg, did you see?"

"Yep!" Dad said. "You're getting pretty good at that, huh, son?"

"Yeah, I guess," said Steven, stepped off the couch to the floor. He rushed towards the kitchen. "Here, let me help!"

The cooking passed in a pleasant, unreal blur. Steven mixed batter, and Dad threw flour at Steven's face. Rose figured out the kettle and proudly produced tea (with the milk and sugar just the way Dad liked). Dad idly started humming one of his old songs, and impromptu, the two of them began to hum along with him. Steven busied himself with the bacon. At one point, a fat glob of boiling oil spat up and hit him in the cheek. Steven winced, but before he could do anything, Rose Quartz was at his side.

"Oh dear, are you hurt?"

"It's okay," Steven began, already collecting spit in his mouth. But Rose bent down close, her eyes shining. She pressed her lips against his forehead in a kiss, the tears overflowing to stream down her face onto his. Within moments, the sting faded and the burn was gone.

She straightened. Steven raised a hand, touching his cheek gently.

"Wow," he said. "Um, thanks. Mom."

Rose startled a little. "Of course! You're welcome!"

They had a huge, amazing breakfast before them. There were the pancakes and bacon, of course; but also eggs and toast with jam and peanut butter. There were tall glasses of milk and a carton of orange juice. There was even a box of cereal, and berries too- making it all part of a Complete Breakfast.

Well. Not a _complete_ breakfast. Not a _together_ breakfast. There was no Pearl, or Garnet, or Amethyst. They'd disappeared into the Temple last night, and hadn't come out since. Steven was pretty sure he knew why.

Steven pushed a piece of pancake around his plate, under the pretense of mopping up more maple syrup. Yesterday, there hadn't been any space in his mind for questions. First he'd been too shocked, then he'd been too happy, and then he'd just been exhausted. Now, however, his old worries were starting to come back, and he found he wasn't as hungry as he should be.

He was interrupted from his thoughts by a scratching sound. He looked up, and quickly found the source.

"Oh, Lion!" Steven ran to the door to let him in.

As soon as the door was open, Lion's ears perked, his nose twitching as if catching a scent. When he saw Rose— his hair puffed straight out. Next thing they knew, he had leapt to her side, winding his way around her legs, purring in a way that Steven had only heard once or twice ever.

"Leo!" Rose cried, scritching behind his ears. "Oh, you're here too… It's so good to see you!"

"His name is Leo?" said Steven.

"Well, it's what I call him," said Rose. "Did you name him 'Lion', then?"

"Yeah," said Steven, feeling faintly embarrassed. It wasn't super creative.

Rose smiled. "It suits him."

Lion reared on his hind legs, placing his massive paws on Rose's shoulders to give her face some raspy licks. Then he fell back down on all fours, and aimed his largest, cutest gaze ever at them.

"He wants food," said Steven. He made his way back to the kitchen, and tossed Lion a couple streaks of bacon left in the frying pan. Lion caught them mid-air and swallowed them in a single bite. Satisfied, his pet turned tail, curled up in a nice patch of sunlight near the window, and began grooming himself as though nothing unusual had happened.

"Cats," Dad snorted. Rose giggled.

Steven took his place back at the counter, finishing off his now soggy pancake. He kept glancing between Lion and his Mom, questions dancing in his mind, desperate to come out. _Why did you name him Leo? How did you make him magic?_ _Why did you become friends with a pack of lions in the first place?_

But Steven was pretty sure that if he started, the questions wouldn't stop there. He wondered about so many other things— the stuff inside Lion, from magical swords to recorded video-tapes, to a pink bubble now popped…

He stifled a sigh. He'd have to ask those questions eventually. There was no way to avoid them forever.

But not now. Not with Dad sitting on his other side, singing through a mouth of eggs and looking like the happiest man on Earth.

Once he finished eating, Steven took his plate and glass to the sink, turning the water on. He fished around in the cupboards for the dish soap— and started a little to find Rose towering over him when he got back up.

"Oh, are you going to clean those? Let me do it!"

"No, no, it's okay," Steven said. Dishes was his chore whenever Pearl was too busy. And anyway, you were supposed to clean for guests.

…if his Mom could even be counted as a guest?

But she seemed genuinely excited by the idea, judging by the way she poked at the bubbles rising up in the sink. Steven was still shifting from foot to foot, unsure, when Dad said, "Good idea Rose!" He scraped what was left of his meal into the garbage and came to join them at the sink. "I'll help. Steven, why don't you go get dressed?"

Well he _was_ still in his pajamas, and Dad said it was okay. So Steven nodded, grabbed his clothes, and went to the bathroom to change. He considered having a shower— he probably needed one— but Steven doubted he had enough patience for it just then. As it was, he only did the bare minimum of teeth brushing. He felt jittery, like he'd just drank a couple cans of Sugar Shock Shutdown, and couldn't quite focus on anything.

He took his time, at least, to wash his gem. After giving it a nice polish, he bent down to get a good look at it, and felt oddly relieved to see his own face reflected on its surface.

He pulled his red shirt down over it, and gave his belly a small pat. Next, he put on a sweater and made a half-hearted attempt at combing his hair. Steven looked in the mirror and pasted his usual smile on his face.

For the first time in his life, his Mom was here. And he wasn't going to waste that.


	7. Dance of Swords

_Chapter Summary:_ Connie makes a solemn vow.

 **Chapter Six**  
 **Dance of Swords**

The boardwalk was unusually quiet. Even this time of year, it was often full of sounds and distractions— from people shopping, eating, and spending time together despite the cold, to the gulls crying above. But today was very… _subdued_. Even the waves relentlessly hitting against shore seemed to be trying their best not to disturb the hushed and still air.

It left Connie feeling strangely uneasy as she rounded the corner at the donut shop and began walking down the beach. The town had been its normal self, with a few people strolling down the sidewalks and driving up the streets, all going about their businesses, but it was as if stepping onto the sand had transported Connie into some kind of bubble of weirdness.

As if the whole area was holding its breath, waiting for whatever was going to happen next.

Connie shook her head. Apparently this was what she got for staying up late, reading horror novels.

The Temple came into sight through the fog, soon followed by the beach house underneath it. Connie unconsciously adjusted her training bag, the hilt of the pink sword sticking out of it softly yet reassuringly bumping against her shoulder. But as she approached, something else caught her attention. Or, rather, some _one_ else.

From a distance, she could see that the figure was large, both in height and build. Connie slowly began to walk closer, only to feel her heart double its speed. The long white dress, combined with the the bright, pink curls cascading down their back told Connie right away who this person must be. A rose quartz. Just like in the portrait that hung over the door in the Steven's house.

Even though Connie had never seen a rose quartz (or indeed, _the_ Rose Quartz) in person, that portrait, combined with the stories that Pearl told and the memories shared through Stevonnie, painted a very vivid picture.

Another rose quartz…

 _Why is she here? Why send another rose quartz to Earth?_

In response, another voice whispered in her head:

 _Why wouldn't they? You've heard all of Pearl's stories. If Rose Quartz was truly as fearsome as that, why_ _ **wouldn't**_ _Homeworld send another to… to attack Earth?_

Connie stopped in her tracks. Should she call Steven? Or maybe, yes, Pearl. If the Gems didn't already know about the invader, they'd need to as soon as possible. On the other hand, calling might attract the Gem's attention, even if she whispered, just like the walkie-talkie did when she and Steven were fighting the corrupted Gems in the far north. She'd never actually thought to ask how good the Gems' hearing was.

So what was Connie to do?

Connie gripped the hilt of her sword, creeping forward carefully. She decided her best bet was to try and catch the Gem off guard. She wasn't too optimistic about her chances in an actual fight. But even if she couldn't subdue the Gem, at least she could make the best of her own relatively small stature, stay light on her feet as was becoming almost second nature, and slip past her opponent and into the beach house. Hopefully Steven and the Gems were already in there, planning their counterattack.

 _Hopefully…_

She shook her head. Splitting focus to ponder such uncertainties wasn't helpful. Instead, she did her best to center her thoughts on herself.

 _Stance wide. Body lowered. And remember your balance…_

She stepped as lightly as she could, but the sand kept shifting under her weight, making it difficult to get a solid foothold. And the noise... it should've been minimal, but in the eerie silence of the beach, it sounded jarring to her ears. Warily glancing at the Gem, Connie carefully unsheathed the sword and angled it in a defensive position. She wasn't sure what to expect. And without Steven to shield her, she would need to be ready to counter an attack if she had to.

After what felt like hours, Connie was within yelling distance of the porch. The Gem stood just next to the foot of the stairs, blocking the path to the house. She had her back towards Connie at least.

Connie inched closer, preparing to jump the intruder. She had reached the slope to the stairs. She had reached striking range. She raised the sword for an attack...

The Gem suddenly turned around, startling the both of them. She raised her hands in a defensive stance as her gaze shifted around everywhere, assessing the situation in well-experienced speed. Her expression became confused, however, when her eyes landed on Connie, then on the sword, and then back again.

But what sent a cold bolt of dread shivering down through Connie's entire being, was the star shaped hole in the middle of the Gem's dress— the center of which had a perfectly round, painfully familiar pink gem— one that Connie could almost _feel_ nestled in her own— and yet not only her own— belly.

Connie tore her eyes away and looked the Gem in her face. The Gem's expression was still filled with shock and confusion, but her _actual_ face— its soft, round nature, her bright expressive eyes, and the way her nose was pushed just slightly up—

She looked just like _him_.

Rose Quartz. _The_ Rose Quartz. But that meant—

 _No! Steven—!_

The sword, its scabbard, the bag fell to the ground. Connie barely noticed. Her eyes were already stinging. She rushed blindly past the Gem, desperately scrambling up the stairs, tripping, stumbling. Her heart raced in her chest. She had to see. Find the Gems. Find out what happened. See if Steven—

Connie barreled through the door and stumbled inside. Ignoring scraped knees, she picked herself up and scanned every inch of the room, hoping, _wishing_ she was wrong.

"Steven! Steven!" she yelled, her voice cracking under strain. She continued to call out, her voice filling the house. "Steven! _Steven!_ "

"Connie?"

Connie wheeled around, trying to find the source of the voice. There— the loft. Steven's face peeking over the edge. Connie dashed up the stairs and immediately wrapped Steven in a tight hug.

"Steven—" she gasped as she pressed her face into his shoulder. "You're not—"

"I'm not—?" Steven coughed the remainder of his thought as Connie squeezed him harder.

"Oh! Sorry, Steven," said Connie, realizing what she was doing. She let him out of her embrace, but she didn't let him go completely. She gripped his hand tightly and clung to his arm— partly to make sure that he was really there and really okay, partly to steady herself when relief made her weak-kneed all of a sudden.

"Connie, what… What's going on?"

As if to answer his question, the front door opened again, much less forcefully and with far more regard for the nearby wall this time.

"Steven?" the Gem asked as she walked into the house, the sword and Connie's bag held in her arms.

Connie turned back to Steven, who said nothing at first. But his expression betrayed his thoughts. He went from looking merely confused to a bit uneasy.

He gripped Connie's hand and began to lead her downstairs. "Come on, Connie. Something's… happened…"

* * *

"So… you're Rose Quartz? Like… _The_ Rose Quartz?"

"It seems so," Rose replied easily, with the air of someone who wasn't a stranger to being described as _The_ Rose Quartz.

Connie's gaze kept going up and down Rose's body. She had already formed an idea of what the legendary Gem would be like, both from what she had seen and what had been implied in others' stories, but the sheer presence that Rose exuded told Connie that, whatever she had imagined, it just couldn't match up to reality.

And this wasn't helped by Steven. He stood and spoke in such a stiff and awkward way that it seemed he was still trying process his mother being here.

His mother…

The implications of what was happening began to fully settle on Connie now. Rose Quartz— the leader of the Gem Rebellion, Steven's mother— was back. Pearl must be overjoyed. Garnet and Amethyst too. And certainly Steven's dad must be as well.

But then… why wasn't Steven? Where were Pearl and Garnet and Amethyst? Why wasn't everyone here celebrating?

What had _happened_?

"How… How did you come back? Er, Mrs. Universe."

Rose smiled softly at her. "There's no need for that. You can call me Rose." She looked over at Steven, whose eyes flicked to the floor as if to avoid meeting her gaze. If Rose noticed, she made no mention of it. Instead she continued, "And some companion you must be, to be entrusted with such a weapon." She held the sheathed sword, _her_ sword, in both hands, one on the scabbard, the other gingerly on the hilt.

"W-well it's the weapon I've been trained with," Connie said, the tiny niggling thought that Rose hadn't actually answered her question slowly fading.

"Trained with? By whom?"

"By Pearl, Mom," Steven answered.

"Pearl? As in, _our_ Pearl?" Rose asked, surprised. She glanced at her sword before looking back at Connie, a small smirk on her face. "Hm. Well, there must be some spark within you then, Connie. Pearl is not easily impressed." She paused as if she were going to say more, but decided against it. Instead, she held out her sword, pushing it towards Connie.

"Oh!" Connie exclaimed as she realized what Rose was doing. She hastily took the sword from Rose. "Thank you. For, um… letting me borrow your sword, I mean."

"Oh no. I'm not letting you borrow it. It's yours now."

"M-mine? Are… are you sure?" Connie couldn't believe what she had heard. The Great Rose Quartz, just _giving_ her sword to her?

"It's not mine. Not anymore," Rose smiled easily. "If Pearl believes that you should have it, then I'm willing to follow her lead."

"That's… very kind of you," Connie said, words threatening to come out all in one jumble. "I'm deeply honored. Ma'am. I-I mean _Rose_. I promise I won't let you down!"

How did Lisa always pull off these moments, delivering the most memorable quotes in the entire _series_ without stammering? It was just plain unfair Connie was caught unprepared like this.

She tried again, starting off with a small bow. "I solemnly swear to uphold the noble values forged into the very metal of this sword, the fearsome weapon you have so generously entrusted into my care."

"Well, I think I'm beginning to see why Pearl likes you," Rose said with another kind smile, and Connie felt her cheeks heat up. She'd been ceremonial enough without overdoing it, right? This wasn't just her and Steven and endless _eth_ s anymore, this was serious stuff.

"So, Connie... If it's not to much to ask, what brings you here today?" Rose spoke so gently and softly. Not in volume, but in tone, as if everything she said came with implicit reassurances that there was no need to worry. That she would handle everything.

"Oh, right." The reason she had come over in the first place had completely slipped Connie's mind. "I'm actually here to practice with Steven."

"Practice what?"

"Fighting… and stuff. Like training," Connie felt her words just fall out of her mouth.

"Oh, I see," Rose responded, her eyes brightening with understanding. "That's why you brought your sword."

Hearing the _your_ sent another tingle down Connie's spine. "Yes, ma'am."

"And where do you practice? Just on the beach?"

"No, Mom. We… practice in the Sky Arena," Steven answered, still sounding a little lost.

"The Sky Arena? My, that hasn't gotten any use in millennia." She cast a knowing grin at the two of them. "Did Pearl fix it up at all?"

Before Connie or Steven could answer, the sound of the temple door opening cut through the conversation. Connie quickly turned on her heel and saw not only Pearl, but also Garnet emerge from within. They both looked stone-faced— though admittedly for Garnet that was pretty normal— without any traces of the joy Connie had been expecting. Neither of them gave any indication of noticing Rose, but they did react to Connie's presence.

"Connie— Ah, right! Practice," Pearl said abruptly, stopping in her tracks in front of the trio. "I'm sorry, our session," she glanced at Rose before looking back at Connie, "completely slipped my mind."

"It's alright," Connie replied. Of course it was. After all, people didn't come back from the dead— or some strange, magical equivalent thereof that Connie hadn't _really_ managed to figure out yet —every day.

"I see you've already met Rose," Garnet stated.

"Yes, we were just talking before you came in." Connie paused, expecting Garnet to say something more, but she didn't. Connie belatedly returned her focus to Pearl, trying not to feel awkward after the pause, "Are we still going to the Arena, ma'am?"

Pearl hesitated for a moment before answering, with a small but determined nod, "Yes. We are." She looked over at Steven. "Assuming you're still ready for practice, Steven?"

Steven nodded back. "Yeah. I… I think some practice would be good right now."

Pearl gave them a small grin. "Yes, I suppose you're right. Best to keep busy, I always say!"

"Oh, so you _are_ going to train?" Rose asked, clearly excited and curious, sharply reminding Connie that she was still there. "Perfect! I want to see how Steven and Connie do." She cast that same knowing grin again, this time at Pearl. "And to see if you still have the same touch you did when training new recruits…"

Pearl's expression reformed into the mask she'd been wearing when she came in. "Oh. So... you'll be joining us, Rose?"

"If that's not a problem."

Again, Pearl paused and glanced around before answering. "Yes, fine, Rose."

Connie didn't think it _sounded_ very 'fine'. She also didn't think Pearl sounded anything like a loyal knight reunited with their beloved liege was supposed to sound. Maybe her own expectations were just… off?

"I'll be coming as well," Garnet said.

"You will, Garnet?" Pearl asked, looking almost relieved.

"Yes. Rose can stay in the stands with me."

"Excellent," Rose said, clasping her hands together. "Perhaps we should find Amethyst and see if she's interested in coming?"

"She's not. Let's go." Garnet broke away from the group and began to walk to the warp pad, Pearl, Steven, and Connie following behind her.

"Ah, well then," Rose said as she caught up to them. "I suppose it'll just be the five of us."

No one said anything in response.

Light emerged from the warp pad, engulfing the group and taking them away from the temple.

* * *

Connie had never felt this nervous just before practice. Even the first time that she had been brought to the Arena for training, she had been more excited than nervous. But now, as she slowly went through her stretching exercises, she could hear Rose and Garnet talking by the stands behind her, and it just filled her with a sense of unease.

 _No, that's not it._ Rose _is talking, but Garnet's not saying anything at all. The Gems… are just as unsure about Rose's return as I am._

"Are you ready, Connie?" Pearl asked, laying a gentle hand on Connie's shoulder. It wasn't a question, really— more of an odd reassurance, and the best Pearl could offer, given the circumstances.

Not sure of what to say, Connie nodded her response instead. Pearl nodded back, giving Connie's shoulder a squeeze before walking over to Steven.

"Pearl!" Rose shouted. Pearl came to an unnaturally sharp stop, halfway to Steven. "What exactly is this?"

Rose stood next to the sticker-plastered chalkboard, examining it closely. The mysteriously-procured school supplies looked as mundane and out of place in the ancient magical stone ruins as Connie herself was starting to feel.

"Oh. Yes!" Pearl fumbled. "That's the uh, chalk board. That I use to mark Steven and Connie's progress. With their training."

"Oh, I see," Rose replied. "And why are there tiny pictures of your face all over it?"

"Those are _Pearl Points_ , Rose," Pearl answered, her cheeks flushing with color. "Steven and Connie get one on the board for every exercise they complete."

"That is so adorable!" Rose practically squealed with delight. "You're not quite the same drill instructor you once were, I see?" she added with a wink.

"I-I still expect much from both of them," Pearl retorted, a defensive edge to her voice. "But they are still children. A gentle, but firm hand is needed."

Rose chuckled, not noticing or choosing not to acknowledge Pearl's tone. "Of course, Pearl. They are your students. You know how to teach them best." She glanced back over at the chalk board. "Though, I have to ask… Did you... _make_ these little stickers yourself?"

Pearl's face flushed an even deeper shade of blue. "Not completely… I had some help from Greg."

Rose beamed brightly. "My Pearl and Mr. Universe working together? My, things _have_ changed, haven't they?"

Pearl turned away, mumbling something under her breath, though Connie couldn't hear what it was. She walked back over to Steven and Connie, looking over the two of them for a moment before nodding. "Are you ready?"

Connie's eyes shot over to the stands behind Pearl, to where Rose had taken a seat next to Garnet.

"Yes. I'm ready," said Connie.

"Me too," Steven said.

"All right. Let's begin with some warm-up maneuvers. Stand together and then take ten paces."

Steven and Connie did so, standing toe-to-toe with each other. Just before they turned and began to count out the paces, they met each other's gaze. During a normal practice session, this was when they would wish each other good luck, but that felt… insufficient right now. Connie still wanted to say something, but she wasn't sure what.

"It's okay, Steven. Everything will be alright."

The simple platitude was more effective than Connie thought it would be. Steven instantly looked like every muscle in his body had relaxed a little. He offered her a small, but sincere smile.

"Thanks, Connie," he said gently.

The two swiftly turned and began counting out their paces.

 _Eight, nine, ten._

Connie turned on her heel and saw Steven do the same.

"Ready."

Connie unsheathed her sword— _her sword!_ the thought chimed distractingly. Across from her, Steven summoned his shield to cover his left arm.

"That's my— Steven can use _all_ my gem powers?" Connie heard Rose ask from the stands.

"Of course. He has your gem," Garnet answered.

Connie could see Steven fidget uncomfortably as they spoke. She leveled her gaze at him, catching his eye and then nodding at him. He grimaced, but nodded back.

" _Begin._ " Pearl's voice rang out sharply.

Connie could see Steven bracing himself as she dashed towards him, closing the gap between them. She quickly attacked with the weapon, but the strike easily bounced off Steven's shield. Connie leapt back and prepared for her next charge.

"I wasn't aware that humans could move that quickly," Rose said from the stands. Steven noticeably flinched at the sound of her voice, all previous concentration lost.

 _Focus, Steven…_

Connie shifted her stance and angled the sword, preparing for her next strike. She lunged forward again and thrust at her sparring partner, but Steven deflected it easily and sidestepped out of range. She gracefully turned to match him and swung the blade around for another strike, but again, it only met Steven's shield. Again and again, round and round, they went at each other like this— Connie attacking and Steven defending. Soon they fell into a comfortable rhythm, moving about the Arena— the only other movement being Pearl occasionally stepping aside as their back and forth made its way over to her. It was almost possible to imagine that this was just another practice session, like the hundreds they'd had before.

 _Almost._

"There you go, Steven! Just like that!"

Once again, Rose's voice caused Steven to miss a beat. He stumbled and almost fell over, but was able to catch himself just in time.

"Careful, Steven," Pearl gently chided. She shot a look over to the seats, but then quickly turned her attention back to the pair. "Stay focused on the here and now."

"'Now' is part of the problem…" Steven mumbled.

If Pearl had heard him, she gave no indication. She instead loudly clapped her hands, a signal for a new set of drills. "Alright. Let's try something more advanced before I bring out the Holo-Pearls." She tapped her chin as Rose 'ooh-ed' in the background and began to ask Garnet if Steven and Connie had gone up against the Holo-Pearls before.

"Let's try another routine. Perhaps one in the Alpha stance?" Pearl seemed to come to an agreement with herself. "Connie, try and do a three-strike attack. Steven, block one, parry one, and dodge one. Understand?"

They both nodded in unison. Despite this being a more advanced routine, they had done it multiple times in the past and it was unlikely to cause either of them any trouble.

 _Maybe that's the point. Pearl's trying to get Steven back into his flow. His funky flow._

Connie smiled to herself. Steven had plenty of funky flow, that was for sure. He just needed some help getting it going right now.

"Ready."

Connie raised the sword, widened her stance, and waited for the familiar call.

" _Begin._ "

Just like at the start, Connie rushed forward— but this time Steven did not hold his ground. He raised his shield, but just as Connie's strike made contact with it, he angled its curved surface to drive the sword away from him and towards the ground. As Connie raised her blade back up, Steven leapt away, safely out of her reach.

 _Parry one…_

Connie regained her stance and paused for only a fraction of a second before she charged again. Steven had his shield still summoned, but had it lowered at his side. No doubt he was intending on dodging her next attack. She smirked confidently to herself.

 _You shouldn't leave yourself so open, Steven…_

When she was within striking distance, Connie pulled the sword back, preparing a strong horizontal slash, one that would be difficult to simply dodge away from. But just as she'd unleashed her attack, she saw Steven's shield disappear and then realized that _Steven_ had been the one to trick _her._ As the edge of the blade approached him, Steven quickly surrounded himself in a clear, pink bubble. Its sudden appearance and expansion not only blocked the sword, but knocked Connie backwards so much that she had to catch herself with one hand on the ground to keep from falling over.

"Ooohhh, Steven is very proficient in his powers, isn't he?" Connie heard Rose ask from the stands.

"They've been trained well," Garnet responded.

Connie stood and rushed, for the third and final time. But it was a decision she quickly regretted as she looked back up at Steven and saw that his attention had once again drifted towards the stands.

"Steven!" Connie called, trying her best to stop herself, and losing the battle against momentum.

Steven turned back towards her and had just begun to summon his shield again when—

"Steven! Watch out!"

As before, Rose's voice had a visible impact on him. He startled mid-summon, one pink flip-flop catching on the edge of an uneven, protruding stone block. Steven stumbled backwards and began to fall.

"Steven! Here!" Connie thrust her hand out and grabbed for one of Steven's helplessly windmilling arms, feeling a dash of _rightness_ as their fingers quickly and tightly interlocked. Their gazes caught and held on to each other, too, and for a second Connie felt like the two of them were hanging harmlessly suspended in mid-air.

And then…

The Glow.

They fell, hitting hard against the smooth rock ground. The sword was thrown out of their hand and skidded across the Arena. They allowed themselves a moment of just lying where they'd fallen, watching the clear sky above them.

"Well…" they began, not really knowing what to say. But their silence was soon filled with another voice.

"Stevonnie."

It was Garnet speaking. Stevonnie sat up from the ground and looked towards the stands and the three Gems within sight.

Garnet's gaze rested easily on them, a comforting, familiar weight they could feel despite the shades, almost like a blanket.

Pearl was constantly looking back and forth between them and Rose.

And Rose… Her eyes were wide and starry, mouth hanging open just slightly.

"They… they _fused_ …" she said quietly, just above a whisper. "Is… Is that even… Fusion with a _human_ … Is that even _possible_?"

"It is," Garnet replied simply. "Steven can fuse with humans."

Stevonnie got back to their feet. But before they could decide what to do, they saw Rose rushing over. They did their best to straighten their thoughts in the few moments this afforded them.

Rose stopped in front of them, her mouth open like she was about to start talking, but she said nothing. Her eyes went up and down their figure, leaving Stevonnie feeling slightly exposed. She took another step forward and held her hand up, only to stop suddenly. After a moment, she looked to them and asked, "May I?"

Stevonnie wasn't sure what she was referring to, but instead of asking what she meant, they merely nodded. Rose nodded back, before lowering her eyes at their bare stomach. At their gem. She laid a gentle finger on it, a gesture that sent a sharp sensation down Stevonnie's spine.

"Incredible…" Rose said softly, her eyes still firmly planted on the gem that so uncannily matched her own. "Why didn't you tell me this could happen?"

Stevonnie raised their gaze and saw that Pearl and Garnet had joined them. Garnet had her familiar neutral expression, but Pearl looked like… like... they didn't know. They couldn't pin down what exact emotion was showing on Pearl's face.

"We… only found out fairly recently," Pearl answered. "It was a surprise to us as well."

"No doubt!" Rose said, an excited smile spreading across her face. She looked up to meet their eyes. "What did you say your name was?"

They looked past Rose, to Pearl and Garnet. Pearl had nothing to say, but Garnet gave them a curt nod. Stevonnie refocused on Rose.

They grimaced and gulped before answering, "I'm Stevonnie."

"Stevonnie? Ah, of course. Steven and Connie." Her grin widened. "That's so adorable. A-and… _amazing_. How do you feel?"

"F-feel?"

 _Worried, uneasy, and so confused that, if I fell, I'm not sure I'd be able to tell you which way is up._

"Rose, give them some space," Garnet said, pulling Rose aside by the shoulder.

"Oh, of course." She chuckled. "I'm sorry. I let my excitement get the better of me."

"It's… It's okay—"

 _Mom?_

"—Rose." They forced a smile. "The Gems had a similar reaction when I first met them."

"I'm sure," Rose said. She looked over her shoulder to Pearl. "I suppose Amethyst and Garnet haven't let you hear the end of this?"

Pearl blinked, as if she were just coming into the conversation. "Never let me hear the end of it?" she repeated slowly and uncomprehendingly.

"You said humans could never fuse, remember?"

"I, uh… Yes, I did say that," she answered. "But that was a long time ago."

"Hm. Yes, I suppose it was." Rose sounded oddly pensive for a moment, before turning back to Stevonnie and letting them bear the not-quite comfortable burden of her gaze again. "Regardless," she daintily took their hand into her own. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Stevonnie."

"I... Yes, it's uh…" They gulped again. "It's… a pleasure to meet you, Rose."

Several seconds of heavy silence passed, before Rose finally broke it. "Are you going to continue practice fused?"

"Oh! Um, yeah— unless it's a problem with you, Pearl?" they asked.

Pearl shook her head. "It's no problem with me, Stevonnie." For a moment it seemed as if she was going to say more, but instead she cast a quick look at Rose, before stepping away and beckoning Stevonnie to follow.

"Come on, Rose. Let's go back to the stands," Garnet said as she led Rose away from the Arena.

"Ah, of course… Has Stevonnie actually fought before?"

But Garnet's answer eluded them as they tried to return their focus to Pearl, who had picked up the sword.

"Here, Stevonnie," she handed the sword to them. "Try to be a bit more careful with it."

Stevonnie grinned sheepishly. "Right…" They took the sword and gave it a few practice swings. "Though, to be fair, I think I have a good excuse."

"Don't we all?" Pearl sighed. She took up her usual spot at the edge of the Arena. "We'll start slow. One on one."

Stevonnie nodded. "Yeah, sounds good, Pearl."

Light began shine from Pearl's gem, slowly taking the shape of a Holo-Pearl.

"Ooohhh… One of Pearl's holograms. It's been ages since I last saw one of them," Rose's voice carried from the stand, sounding oddly wistful and just the slightest bit… _sad_?

Stevonnie closed their eyes tightly.

 _Just ignore her. This is just another training session. I've got this…_ Together _._

The last word seemed to calm them a bit, at least enough to put most of their focus on their opponent.

"DO YOU WISH TO ENGAGE IN COMBAT?" the Holo-Pearl asked, its voice as flat and mechanical and oddly threatening as always.

"Session 3, Routine JMDB 2," Pearl said simply.

"PROCESSING… ROUTINE ACCEPTED," the hologram said as its eyes flashed from white to bright red. Its attention focused on Stevonnie. "YOU WILL REGRET CHALLENGING ME!"

It paused as it held out its hand, a sword materializing in its palm. Stevonnie readied their stance, summoning their shield to their arm.

("Oohh," Rose cooed.

 _No. Focus._ )

They were going to let the Holo-Pearl make the first move, but it just stood in place, eyeing them. Several more moments passed and the stare-off continued with no end in sight.

"Alright, fine. If you won't come to me, I'll come to you."

They gave their sword a practiced twirl before dashing forward. The Holo-Pearl raised its weapon to strike, but once in range, Stevonnie easily deflected its blade with their shield. As the Holo-Pearl regained its posture, Stevonnie couldn't help but smirk. They knew what was coming next.

All at once, it was like a gear had shifted in their mind. There was no Pearl, or Garnet, or even Rose. There was only Stevonnie and their opponent.

Their next move was quick and graceful, a flurry of footwork, slashes with their sword, their shield moving precisely and smoothly from point to point— all punctuated by the clangs of the Holo-Pearl's sword clashing harmlessly against their defenses.

What unfolded within the Arena was less a fight and more of a dance. Two artists, perfectly in sync, moving not against or around but _with_ each other, each performing their own routine, perfectly complementing each other all the while.

Given Steven's track record, it was a wonder that Stevonnie and the hologram didn't fuse.

Another block, another dodge, another parry. Stevonnie knocked the Holo-Pearl's sword away, and in that split second, they saw it—

 _An opening–! Push!_

They crouched, leapt, and saw the Holo-Pearl below them.

They landed, they turned.

They slashed.

There was a pause, then the hologram flickered and blinked out of existence.

As the adrenaline drained from their body, Stevonnie realized how hard they were breathing. For just a single opponent, the Holo-Pearl had put up a good challenge. Pearl must have tweaked its routine.

"Very good, Stevonnie. Now perhaps—"

"That was _incredible!_ " They turned and saw Rose running towards them again, applauding loudly, an ecstatic smile stretched across her face and a somewhat put-upon Garnet trailing behind her.

Before Stevonnie could protest, Rose grabbed them by the arm. "That was incredible…" she repeated, a bit more breathily this time. "The way you fought, the way you moved, even some of the most talented in the rebellion couldn't—" She seemed to catch herself, stopping before she finished the thought. "Well, I definitely see Pearl's influence in your style," Rose concluded instead.

"Yeah, Pearl's a great teacher," Stevonnie replied.

It wasn't a lie, per se, but every interaction with Rose— even just _thinking_ about her— felt untruthful. Like they were dodging and skirting around what really needed to be said.

 _That's just it. That's exactly what's happening._

"When did your training start?" Rose asked, pulling Stevonnie back to the present.

They hesitated, and Pearl took the opportunity to answer, "Not that long ago. Though both Steven and Connie trained as themselves for a while before we brought Stevonnie into things."

"I see," Rose responded. "Hm. It's nice to see you still hard at work, Pearl. You still remember the first time I brought you here?"

Pearl's cheeks immediately flushed with color. "I, uh… Of _course_ I do."

"The sky was beautiful that night. It was just filled with so many stars..." Rose reminisced. "And then when I turned around, you were—"

"Rose, _please_!" Pearl quickly interrupted. "Now's not really the time."

"Ah, I'm sorry," Rose said, looking surprised at the reaction. "I didn't mean to embarrass you."

Pearl looked away and sighed. "I know," she said softly.

A silent beat, and Stevonnie felt like they couldn't stand it anymore. "Rose?"

"Yes, Stevonnie?"

They hesitated. They _knew_ what they wanted to ask _. 'How'd you get here?' 'Why?' 'What's going on exactly?'_ But they couldn't bring themselves to ask any of those questions, even though they felt like they were burning somewhere below their throat. It just felt… like it wasn't the right time.

 _But then_ when _is the right time?_

 _Maybe if… I approach the subject carefully, and I bring Pearl and Garnet into it slowly, then maybe…_

"Rose, I–"

They stopped themselves when they saw that Rose had her back to them.

"—no, that's not what I meant, Pearl," Rose said. Pearl and Garnet were standing across from her. Pearl had her arms folded across her chest, her brows furrowed.

"I… Yes, I know, Rose," she said, her voice sounding just a little strained. "I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Rose responded. "I know that this is a lot to take in."

Pearl turned, wiping the corners of her eyes. "It is."

"I think," Garnet said, adjusting her shades. "It's best if we end training for the day." She looked past Rose to Stevonnie.

They blinked, before realizing that Garnet was waiting for their input.

"Ah, yeah. It probably is, I guess," they said slowly.

Garnet nodded, before placing a hand on Pearl's shoulder. "Come on. Let's go." They began to walk towards the ramp leading to the warp pad. Garnet called over her shoulder, "We'll see you back at the temple."

"I guess practice is over," Rose said. She turned around. "Were you saying something before, Stevonnie?"

Stevonnie looked down at their sword again. Funny how _that_ felt so right when everything else about Rose felt so wrong.

"No. Nothing. Let's… just head back to the temple, too."

oOoOo

 **Authors' Note:** Swordtheguy is not currently listed as a formal author on this story, but deserves credit for his amazing and extensive work on this chapter. Go check him out, especially if you're a big fan of Connverse or Stevonnie!


	8. That's Unusual!

_Chapter Summary:_ Rose comes to see a few things in an entirely new light. Among them: department stores, ice cream, and Pearl.

 **Chapter Seven**  
 **That's Unusual!**

Rose had never been in a store before.

Well, she'd been in a few, mostly with Greg, but never one like this. This wasn't a small boardwalk business or an out-of-the way guitar repair shop. No, this was something that called for a highly prepared expedition— with a long, elaborate list, a somewhat cramped van ride, the acquisition of a 'shopping cart' for transporting items, and... something to do with 'departments'.

Pearl was doing her best to most efficiently make it to the bottom of said list, with Steven as her chief assistant. Rose tried to make herself useful and to participate in this family ritual by joining Garnet— and, on occasion, a shapeshifted Amethyst— in fetching items from the top shelves.

The pink bag that hung about Pearl's waist kept giving off strange noises that sounded like the slightly muffled ringing of very small bells. Stranger yet was Pearl's apparent determination to pretend this wasn't happening at all, and that there was nothing more fascinating and captivating in the world than ingredient lists printed in far too tiny letters on the backs of a variety of boxes.

"No, Steven, we came here for spinach, not—"

This time when the odd little chime sounded, Pearl started and dropped the head of cabbage she was holding, and then watched it roll halfway across the aisle with consternation written in every line of her form. She made no move to pick it up, nor a peep of protest as Amethyst snapped it up and swallowed it whole.

Pearl had never been one for subtlety, and the delightfully _improper_ way her entire face lit up or clouded over or sparked with rage was something Rose treasured about her, even if— or perhaps especially _because_ — no Diamond Courtier ever did or would. The fact that there was something wrong was as plainly visible as the gem on Pearl's forehead.

"Just answer the damn phone already, P," Amethyst grumbled, trotting back with a fresh head of cabbage. Pearl's hiss of " _Amethyst-!_ " went entirely unheeded.

"Oh, you have a phone? May I see?"

It was, perhaps, unfair to put on the pleading look that she _knew_ Pearl could never resist, but Rose couldn't quite manage to feel guilty about it. Pearl with human inventions was always a delight, no matter whether her reactions leaned more towards curiosity or disdain. Selfish, perhaps, on Rose's part, to try and provoke something now but, _oh_ , how she'd _missed_ her. Every little part of her, both agreeable and less so.

Missing her _then_ was what made missing her _now_ so strange and troubling, grinding down the sheer, unimaginable relief and wonder at the reality of Pearl being whole and alive before her. They'd had their disagreements over the centuries, of course, but Rose wasn't even sure what this one was about— or even if it was a disagreement at all. If Pearl was just avoiding being around her, or had gone off somewhere, Rose would have understood: sometimes Pearl needed time and space to process the upheavals in her life. But the emotional distance was new. Pearl hadn't been a carefully neutral, unreachable face beside her since... since long _Before_.

Pearl sighed her surrender and pulled the phone out, handing it to Rose after a few hasty swipes at something on screen.

The phone was dwarfed by Rose's hand, but the colors on the display were bright and vivid, and the way they brought to life the picture of Pearl hugging Connie and Steven, only slightly obscured by the digits of a clock and a tiny rain cloud, was beautiful. She was struck again, too, by the clear affection and high regard Pearl had for her human protégée.

"This is _adorable_ ," Rose cooed.

"It used to say 'CHALLENGE ACCEPTED' when you got a message," Steven supplied enthusiastically, peeking over Rose's arm to get a better look. "But Pearl asked me to change it after a little while. It's okay, though. My Holo-Pearl impression wasn't very good."

"Aren't Pearl's holograms the most marvelous? I was so thrilled the first time she showed them to me!"

Pearl cringed, as if Rose had scolded rather than complimented her. If _praise_ wasn't working on Pearl, then Rose was beginning to feel truly lost in this oddly rearranged landscape of interactions.

"It wasn't that, Steven," Pearl assured him, though her hand fluttered in a non-committal fashion. "It just… didn't feel entirely appropriate—"

Steven wasn't one to be derailed, however. "Now it's this cute little chime for messages, and when she gets a call it plays a song I recorded myself!"

In the days since her arrival, Rose had seen him bounce between bright encouragement and enthusiasm— genuine, with only the occasional undercurrent of forced— and tension and awkwardness that bordered on outright worry when he thought nobody was watching. Only a few days since her arrival, only a few days of getting to know him instead of imagining what he could be like... but Rose knew very intimately the role he was doing his best to play— as well as the toll that it could take.

Unbidden, a cold, unpleasant thought surfaced in her mind: _the role he was born to play_. Rose did her best to shake off its unpleasant tendrils. That just wasn't how things worked on Earth. It never would be, not after everything she'd done to ensure it.

On cue, the phone rang and vibrated in Rose's hand— she couldn't suppress a small chuckle at the tickling sensation. But Pearl was there in an instant, plucking it from Rose's loosened grip and tucking it away again.

"We should get going. It's quite late and these stores have implemented the concept of _working hours_ — a very important aspect of human culture which we really must respect—"

The now-familiar sound of descending ukulele chords overpowered the hum of the store freezers, and Pearl turned and wordlessly sped off with the shopping cart without so much as a glance back at where Rose was left standing.

It felt odd, and cold, and it stung strangely, almost like a rejection— the last thing on Earth Rose was used to. And she couldn't say she'd had plans, exactly, as all… all _this_ felt a bit too desperate to be called a plan, but she'd had expectations, even hopes— for reunions, for second chances, for making amends. There had been thoughts of lost faces she would get to see again, swarming even as she'd tried to focus on the details of Bismuth's craftsmanship, the awareness of hands she'd desperately wanted to hold again, lips she'd wanted— and _still_ wanted— to kiss.

And Pearl, her Pearl, was _here_... but also, somehow, she suddenly wasn't— or she refused to be.

Garnet was much the same. Together, thankfully, and seemingly in harmony with herself, but an entirely new kind of guarded, watchful, and remote. One that called to mind the air she'd sometimes borne around her after hours of rifling through particularly troubling futures in an effort to find one to grasp at and work towards, no matter how unlikely.

Amethyst was the only one of them that Rose had gotten what felt like a genuine smile out of. And oh, she was looking so well, her wild, unpredictable little Amethyst, at ease with herself and _as_ herself in a way Rose had never really seen her be, but had always wished for her. She knew she couldn't claim any credit for any of it, of course, but she still felt a surge of pride at the thought.

And Steven… Steven was well aware of the strange mood, that much was obvious from his frown as Pearl disappeared from view. But his determination to power through whatever awkward silences descended upon them was equally evident, and had only become more so after their visit to the Sky Arena had been cut short.

"Here, Mom, you can help me pick out some ice cream flavors! Come on, I can show you my favorites, and Dad's, and Amethyst's— although I'm not sure hers is available in stores, exactly..."

"I'd love to, Steven, but I should just… check on Pearl." It wasn't quite a question, but it wasn't far from one, either. Steven gave her hand a tug in the direction Pearl had markedly _not_ left in.

"Steven's right. Give her a moment."

Those felt like the first words Garnet had spoken all day, and Rose knew it wasn't just her imagination making it seem like Garnet was even more quiet than usual. The way she was keeping to the side and to herself, watching— or perhaps _Watching_ — put Rose in mind of what she'd seen in the Burning Room during one of her recent exploratory strolls through the Temple, of the Breaking Point hovering overhead, suspended in a dark red bubble. She met Garnet's eyes briefly— or thought she did— and quickly turned away. The last time she hadn't trusted Garnet—

"Ugh, come _on_!" Amethyst groaned, grabbing Rose's recently freed arm and pulling her towards the freezers and Steven's ice cream mining operation. Rose gave in and followed, and did her best to also follow his explanations of which kind went well with syrup and which one didn't and which one, amazingly, had syrup already built in.

"Here, the promised selection of official Crystal Gem ice cream flavors of choice! Featuring one each for Ruby and Sapphire and Garnet. Now, I know you haven't met Lapis and Peridot yet, so maybe you won't really get these, but I promise they make sense. And this one—" Steven pointed to a box decorated with pale green swirls, then fished it out of the freezer and handed it to Rose. "—This is the one I picked for Pearl, even though she doesn't eat ice cream— or, well, much of anything, really. But that's no reason to be left out!"

Rose tried, she really did. But the best she ended up managing was keeping her voice quiet and somewhat calm as she posed the question still eating at her. "Do you know where Pearl went?"

 _Will she be all right?_ and _What can I do to help?_ she kept to herself.

"Aw, man, let it _go_. Can't we all just chill?"

Garnet's quiet _'Amethyst'_ had clear warning in it that Rose wasn't sure she fully understood, and that Amethyst decided to ignore. "What? It's not like it needs to be a big deal anyway."

It felt like she didn't understand a great many things, really. The cold from all the ice cream Steven had already loaded into her arms wasn't something that bothered her, of course, but it was certainly something she could feel.

"Are we not… chilled?"

"Uh, _no_. Everyone's freaking out over this for no real reason."

Rose was more lost than before. Her sudden (re)appearance in all of their lives was a shock, and maybe, a small part of her admitted, she _wanted_ it to be a 'big deal'. She wouldn't fault them a need for adjustment— but then, Amethyst had always been the quick, changeable, adapting, shifting one among them, so it wasn't too shocking to hear from her—

"Like, look, you had tons of partners all the time and it was cool, so _what_ if Pearl—" Amethyst froze, wincing as she shot a quick look at Garnet, whose down-turned lips demonstrated the most easy-to-interpret reaction she'd shown the whole day.

"...if Pearl...?"

"Pearl has," Amethyst ground out, trying and failing to meet Garnet's weighty, if unseen, gaze, "...a girlfriend."

"Oh."

That was… unexpected. But it did make several things rather clearer in hindsight. In the thousands of years they'd spent together, Pearl had never expressed anything that seemed like serious interest in anyone else. She'd been very close and quite openly affectionate with some of their fellow Crystal Gems, yes, but not even during the war, when she'd had her own circle of admirers vying for the fearsome Renegade's bemused attention, did any of it ever amount to more than a passing fancy.

"Yeah," Amethyst confirmed somewhat glumly.

"Is she… one of those other Gems you told me about?"

"No. She's a human. The two of them were doing pretty great. And now for some reason we're not supposed to tell you, but _she_ clearly isn't going to and I'm sick of—" Amethyst flailed her arms in the direction Pearl had sped off in what felt like ages ago, "—whatever this is supposed to be."

"What _is_ it supposed to be?" Rose muttered, feeling more displaced than she had since taking her first steps off that familiar-but-not-quite warp pad.

"She was supposed to go on a date," Amethyst admitted. "But I guess she stood the girl up or something? Which, honestly, is just messed up and I was _sure_ my pro tips covered—Woah, hey, Rose, wait, where are you—"

Getting a good view of the store from above would have probably been the easiest and fastest way to go about it, but Rose didn't even bother trying, not with how lead-heavy every step she made already felt.

Pearl wasn't in the next aisle over, or the one after that, or the one after that. For the next few, Rose cheated by standing on tiptoe and peeking over the well-stocked shelves, but even that didn't produce a trace of Pearl. There was no sign of her by the cereal boxes either, or near the dried fruit, or among the endless tiny bags and packages whose purposes Rose could only make the wildest of guesses at. She'd gone out— that was the only reasonable explanation, even when nothing seemed to be particularly reasonable at all.

Rose couldn't quite manage to retrace her steps back to where they'd all first entered, but blundering once more through aisle after aisle she found herself face to face with the exit. The strange gate that stood between her and the way out of the store— and, presumably, to Pearl— was hard to successfully navigate, especially with her arms as full as they were. The irritatingly high-pitched sound it was making really wasn't helping Rose's composure any, either.

"Excuse me, uh, ma'am," a weak voice sounded from behind her, barely audible above the shrill beeping that felt like it was resonating through to the core of Rose's gem. "You need to pay for that... uh, please?"

But Rose was occupied elsewhere, as her searching eyes briefly tripped over a figure some ways in front of her, lost from sight before she could even properly focus on it. A glimpse of Pearl's back— she'd know that anywhere. She'd seen that far, far too often, in circumstances she hoped she'd never have to repeat. Rose thought of blows she would never let anyone take for her again, struggled through the weak metal that kept crying out in protest, and broke free, dashing after the yearned-for apparition.

It brought up a memory— an older one, not from any battlefield, but one that Rose had found herself revisiting more and more often ever since her… loss. A pale flash of a pearl, long before she was ever _her Pearl_ , comparatively tiny in hallways meant for diamonds, clutching a stolen sword to her chest and running for her life. And Rose herself, in frantic pursuit, wanting nothing more than to call out to her and shout that she wasn't a threat, that all secrets of her curious, mutinous little acquaintance were as safe with her as she could possibly make them. Millennia later, she still felt the frustration of having to remain silent and beneath notice— but she also remembered what had come after.

And finally, there Pearl was, just as she had been then, grabbing and drawing attention in place of the mere passing admiration she'd been finely crafted for. One of the last moving shadows in the dim sunset-hued parking lot, carefully taking items out of the shopping cart parked at her side and arranging them into precise, symmetrical stacks in the back of the van.

Rose ran over to her, worry mixing with relief driving her onward. "Pearl!"

"Rose?" A beat, as she turned and fully took in the sight before her. "What on _Earth_ are you doing with all that ice cream?"

"I just… Steven said this one was his favorite, and that it absolutely had to be eaten with _this_ one on top, and I wanted to see if you were okay—"

"Where did you even get the money to—? Oh, no." Realization was quick to dawn on Pearl's face, and she cut herself off with a pained-sounding sigh. "Rose, you can't just... do whatever you want."

Pearl's discomfort seemed far too deep and pronounced to stem from mere careless disregard of human social conventions. Her fingers brushed against Rose's arms as she took the boxes of ice cream away to put them into the now-empty cart, one by one— and that was the careful, accidental extent of their physical contact.

"It's theft, technically, and I need to go back and pay for all of this now. Oh, I hope they won't make a fuss!"

Rose stood and listened and found she very much wanted to take Pearl's hand, or put a hand on her shoulder, at least, but suddenly everything about Pearl gave her pause in a way it hadn't in a long, long time.

 _You can't just do whatever you want._

"Why didn't you go on your date?" she asked, instead, quietly. "Why didn't you tell me about her, about your human— I mean, you didn't think I'd _mind_? Pearl, I'm happy for you, I really am!"

And she didn't mind, she really didn't, and stars knew she'd encouraged every speck of interest Pearl had ever shown in humanity, it was just… It was hard to imagine not being the primary focus of Pearl's attention. And perhaps she hadn't realized just how much she'd needed Pearl until she was gone, until she'd lost her in such a terribly final, irreparable way, beyond the reach of any healing fountain or tears or magic— right before her eyes...

"I didn't know what you'd think," Pearl replied, long fingers toying with the chain hanging off the shopping cart handle, then moving to close around her own upper arms in a way that made Rose want to utter a _no, let_ _ **me**_ — right until Pearl's tone suddenly sharpened. "Sometimes I wonder if I ever did!"

"What?"

"I used to think I knew everything there was to know about you! I was your confidante, your closest, most faithful companion and secret-keeper, willing to– to share your burdens and listen to you and trust you and follow you no matter what, and then you decided to become a _baby_ , and I found out about your _lion_ — not to mention everything in that mane of his! —and just how many lions have there even _been_ , Rose?"

 _Seven_ didn't feel like the correct answer here, if there even was one— no matter how true. And pointing out that _she'd_ never decided to become a baby, for better or worse, felt similarly ill-advised. "Pearl—"

"I kept them all anyway, your secrets— if they're even yours! I don't know who you are, now quite literally!" Pearl let out a little laugh, and it had a definite note of hysterics to it.

Rose once again tried to get a word in, but Pearl wasn't finished, and instead of keeping them protectively wrapped around herself, she left her arms free to dramatically accompany her words and underline every long-simmering point she was finally making. "But maybe, _just this once_ , I didn't want to think about what _you'd_ think or how _you'd_ feel about what I'm doing with _my_ life!"

"Pearl, I—"

"And I don't _want_ your approval and, you know what? I don't _need_ it either because stars know you never thought to get it from me!"

Rose blinked. Had she done something? Had the _other_ her, of this timeline, done something Rose couldn't have known about or accounted for and would now have to do her best to fix? Wronged Pearl in some way, perhaps, before leaving to have Steven?

"What?"

Pearl seemed to deflate at that, her sudden stillness at odds with her ruffled hair, wide eyes, and the bright teal blotches on her face. "What do you mean 'what'? You _know_ what!"

"Pearl, I don't understand."

All she got in response was a frustrated little noise at the back of Pearl's throat, and an increasingly tense and awkward stare-off— from a carefully mandated distance. Everything about this encounter seemed determined to drive home how much she'd missed— how much she _still_ missed Pearl in a very physical and tactile and perhaps _human_ sense. She missed everything from the fluttery touches that tickled like the tiniest of curious Earth insects strolling up and down her arm, to the often near-desperate clinging that managed to be both appreciative and reassuring.

For all her protective and healing powers, Rose was still a quartz: gentleness was something she'd had to work for, and strength was something she did her best to keep in check unless in need. It hadn't been easy to find a balance with Pearl, at first. Erring on the side of tenderness had a note of condescension to it, and throwing caution to the wind threatened to turn friendly sparring sessions into disasters. In the end, like so many things between the two of them, it had been long years of trial and error and the seemingly endless trust Pearl put in Rose by placing herself in her hands.

Perhaps that was what was so painfully absent here. Trust. Perhaps she could manage it again— the bridging of a painful gap.

"Please, Pearl," Rose spoke, one arm lifted as if in offering, halfway between the two of them. "Tell me what's wrong." Then, she allowed herself a somewhat wry smile. "You know I'm not very good at this."

Pearl ignored the gesture, and the smile, and the play for sympathy. "I'm talking about _Greg_! Greg and the parade of other humans before him!"

The outburst was not what Rose had been expecting at all.

"You had a problem with Greg? And… the others? But you said..." She trailed off, frowning at the combined incredulity and frustration evident on Pearl's face.

"I thought I'd made that rather obvious, yes. _Clearly_ I was mistaken." The note of haughtiness would have felt reassuring in any other context, but now it just stung.

"Well... I knew you didn't like _him_ , but I thought that was just a matter of…" Shaping the most basic of words was turning into a challenge, and Rose swore that delivering a speech to a dramatically outnumbered army on the eve of battle had never been quite this hard. "Of interests or _personality_ , not..."

"Not what? Jealousy? Yes, I was jealous, Rose. Of course I was jealous!"

"But—"

"You'd just _go off_ and find some _endlessly_ fascinating human to spend all your time with and just expect me to be perfectly fine with it, without ever asking."

"I _did_ ask!"

"Well, you didn't ask _that_! You asked me if I would still—" Pearl faltered a bit, and blinked moisture away from her eyes. "...you asked me if I would still love you. What was I supposed to say to _that_? How could I ever say anything but– but—"

She never managed to finish the sentence, to actually say the words even as indirectly as that. It felt like the confirmation of an unspoken fear that had been building up in the back of Rose's mind since the first time Pearl, _this_ Pearl, had flinched and drawn away from her.

"I've always just loved… being with people." Why was it always so easy to feel feelings and so impossible to explain them to someone else? "I loved… I loved loving them. Every single one. I thought… I was so sure you understood that how I felt about them didn't change what I felt for you, Pearl. It never could."

"But you _left_ , Rose! You kept leaving and coming back and _leaving_ and _coming back_ until one day you just didn't come back at all! And how was I supposed to feel then? How was I supposed to feel when you left me for your precious Assyrian poet, or during your decades in Paris with the endlessly celebrated soprano, or– or how was I supposed to feel when you expected me to be there for you after they died or left because it was suddenly too much for them and they couldn't understand? And I was _there_ , Rose, remember?" Pearl sniffed, tears running down two angry tracks in earnest now, her voice breaking slightly. "I was there _every single time_. For you. But how many times have I not been enough? For you? Where were you when I wanted– when I _needed_ you?"

Pearl's chest was heaving with effort, feeling, and loud, gasping breaths— the very human affectation Rose had last seen her spitefully abandon just before... But that was not where, or rather when, Rose found herself— she was _now_ , and she needed all her focus lest the _now_ become more like the _then_. She had to have learned _something_ , hadn't she? There had to have been a purpose—

It took some effort to break the silence that stretched between them almost like a tense, physical presence, but Rose wasn't going to let even an inkling of a second chance slip away.

"I'm sorry," she offered softly. "Do you want me to… talk to Greg?"

"No!"

Rose was taken aback by the vehemence. "But—"

"He already knows how I felt. _Everyone_ knew how I felt. Except for you, apparently. This—" Pearl faltered. "We talked. Greg and I, we– you were _gone_. And all of this… it's not his fault. And I'm trying, I really am, to believe it's not me who was—"

Pearl's hands fluttered about, meaning lost somewhere between _insufficient_ and _wrong_ and the long-hated and long-resisted but always echoing _defective_.

 _Talking_. That was what it had taken with Greg, once upon a time, and what everyone on Earth seemed to swear by— and what she had strived for as well. But Rose felt suddenly overwhelmed by the fact she could recall with perfect clarity every single time the _talking_ had failed her in spite of all her best and most hopeful attempts, starting from brushed-off compromises with a diamond who had thus doomed herself, all those thousands of years ago. Even Greg had seemed to give up on it, near the end.

"Greg has just as much a right to be with you as anyone. I won't have you interfere with that on my account."

"But if it was making you unhappy—"

"It's a bit too late for that," Pearl chuckled bitterly through the remnants of her tears. "He loves you, Rose. He was so happy to see you. I can't take that away from him. Or you."

It was hard to think while swimming in all the implications hidden in those few words, or the absences between them. _Aren't_ _ **you**_ _happy to see me? Don't_ _ **you**_ _love me?_

"Then what about... us?"

"I don't know." Pearl's crying had mostly petered out. "There was always so much stacked against us. _Everything_ , as it very often seemed. Right from the start. A-and to throw around blame would be… counterproductive."

"We've gone against impossible odds before, though. You and me. We made our own traditions of it. When have we _ever_ had it easy or simple?" Rose tried for a smile, but it was a weak, faltering thing. This was her Pearl, who never gave up, no matter what. Who attacked engine failures and rapier footwork and the novel human concept of kissing all with the same endless ferocity and determination. "When has it ever stopped us from trying?"

"It's… not my choice to make. At least, not _just_ mine. I need… I need to talk to _her_. And I need to adjust. I've spent the last fourteen years adjusting, or, well, doing my best to. Now I have to do it all over again." Pearl looked pained. "I think we shouldn't… I think we should keep our distance. For now."

"If that's what you want," Rose spoke quietly.

The idea that Pearl wouldn't want her was something she thought she'd left behind a long, long time ago, in what would most definitely count as another life. A life of _before_ , of endless cycles in diamond-owned outposts and arenas and barracks, of stealing glances at a pearl who she was constantly reminded was someone else's, before either of them knew she was no-one's.

It was unfair, perhaps, or not the time for it, but she couldn't help the words from escaping in a straightforward, earnest confession. "I still love you."

They'd drawn close to one another— unconsciously, like one of those simple and inevitable things. Rose could see the shine of fresh tears clinging to Pearl's eyelashes, and the subtle tremor in her tightly shut lips.

"I–!" Pearl squeaked out, jolting back and away, ending the moment for good. "I need to go pay for the ice cream."

She grabbed the shopping cart and sped off, back towards the store entrance, leaving Rose standing by the van with nothing to do but helplessly stare after her before she was once again lost from sight.

A set of familiar voices broke her from the stupor, and instead left her wondering just how much they'd seen and heard.

"Get in, Amethyst. Steven, you too. Rose..." Garnet nodded at her, and the brief acknowledgement felt like a gift. "Time to go home."

The innocuous words flooded Rose's mind with a paralyzing mix of Bismuth's hastily-given instructions and the heat of the forge and red-hued light reflecting off rounded glass. Almost like she was back there and then, feeling the shape of the carefully etched words beneath her fingers for the first time:

 _You can't go home again._

A warning or a promise? Rose still couldn't tell, but she chose to place all her hopes in the latter.

As if on cue, Steven came up behind her and gave her hand a gentle pull towards the van's still-open doors.

"Do you... want me to drive us back?" Amethyst asked as they all slowly climbed inside. She seemed much more sheepish than earlier, shooting looks at Garnet that could almost be described as apologetic, all of her bravado about things _not being a big deal_ having long since evaporated. "I mean… you know it usually takes a while when Pearl gets upset and runs off. I don't have the keys but I don't think Greg'll mind if I pull out a couple wires—"

"Here's your ice cream, Steven," Pearl cut in from the passenger side window, as if she'd never been gone at all. "The rest were close to their expiration date and I would never risk you like that."

"Er, thanks, Pearl," Steven replied, looking as confused as Rose felt as he accepted the pink-white carton. "You got my favorite."

"You're… back already?" Amethyst stared, then scrambled over the back of the driver's seat to let Pearl take her place.

"They didn't seem too mad about earlier," Pearl supplied, very detached and factual, as she buckled her seatbelt. "Something about it being cold enough for the ice cream not to have melted. Anyway, I pointed out the dates on the boxes and told them I was in a hurry due to… family obligations."

Nothing more was said as the van slowly rolled out of the parking lot and Steven reached over to the radio to turn it to some inoffensive music station with a bored-sounding DJ. Garnet had chosen to forgo her former perch on the roof in favor of squeezing herself in between Rose, Amethyst, and the stacks of groceries.

As they hit the highway, Rose could see Garnet put a hand on Pearl's shoulder from her place in the back of the van, and the ride continued on in silence.

oOoOoOo

Alternative Summary: ice cream, meandering Rose thoughts, and thousand-year-old space alien relationship drama.


	9. Objective Intervention

**Chapter Eight**  
 **Objective Intervention**

Garnet had never seen Amethyst wolf down something so efficiently, and yet so unenthusiastically. Her devouring speeds were always impressive, to be sure, but there was always a particular brand of joy present in the proceedings, however brief. The sullen avoidance now smeared all over Amethyst's actions and expressions made Garnet's head ring with warnings in two separate yet familiar voices, and she was sure that, had it been possible, Amethyst would have made the Temple door slam shut behind her.

Garnet turned back to the table, where Greg still sat, wide-eyed, his spoon awkwardly stuck halfway to his mouth and mostly empty of the chowder it had once contained. Garnet looked over to Steven, sitting right next to his shell-shocked father, looking more worried and pained than anything.

He met her gaze with a blatantly pleading one of his own. Garnet suppressed a sigh and moved to get up. "I'll go talk to her."

Steven's grateful and hopeful little smile was reward enough for any future efforts on her part. Having such immense faith put in her could certainly feel like a burden often enough. Garnet had often wondered if Rose had properly understood the full weight of the responsibility she was placing squarely on Garnet's shoulders by leaving.

Perhaps now she'd be able to find out.

But later. Amethyst first.

(A small part of her wondered, casting a quick glance over the past few days and her own uncharacteristically blind actions during them, if she should have had _that_ particular thought a bit sooner.)

The way to Amethyst's room was familiar and simple in a way that made Garnet think back, idly trying to pinpoint when it was that her frequent and casual visits had been reduced to something that only happened in the case of an emergency, like corrupted Gem monsters on the loose. It wasn't really all that hard to trace. Like so many things, it had happened after Rose's… departure. Responsibility always felt like it required distance.

Garnet huffed at herself as she stepped out of a puddle amidst piles of trash and treasure. It wasn't really the time for pointless, retrospective indulging in might-have-beens.

But then, it never was.

Luckily, she still knew Amethyst well enough to know where to look for her, even without glimpsing into the future.

"Amethyst. It's me," Garnet called out, half in warning, in the general direction of the pile containing Amethyst's favourite Soft Things and a couple of choice Slimy Things.

"Go away," the pile shouted back.

Garnet allowed herself a quiet sigh and began making her way around the Amethyst-made hill, displacing a few knick-knacks as she went. "I want to talk to you."

"Yeah, well, save it, Garnet. I don't need another rundown of how I keep messing stuff up for everyone!"

"That's not why I'm here."

"Sorry if I find that a bit hard to believe," Amethyst grumbled, very obviously determined to continue her sulk.

Garnet was face to face with her now— or as close to that as she was going to get— with Amethyst curled up into a ball, her nose peeking out just above her knees. She was idly poking at the goopy remnants of one of the robonoids nestled beside her in the pile. The highly advanced bit of Homeworld tech that had once come so horrifyingly close to fixing the Galaxy Warp and dooming them all was now split in half, not unlike the couple of very low-tech, very Earthly coconuts lying a few feet away.

"Peridot said it was fine to keep it, so whatever." Amethyst sounded defensive as ever as she caught the direction of Garnet's glance, clutching the robonoid closer and getting some of her hair stuck in the goop. "I don't care if Pearl has a fit over it."

Garnet shrugged, and sat down on a relatively clear patch of ground close by, leaning back against what may have once been a traffic sign. "Pearl doesn't need to know. Wouldn't recommend having it for dessert, though."

The noise the statement prompted from Amethyst wasn't a full-blown chuckle, perhaps, but Garnet would take it for the time being. She didn't need Future Vision to know the next part wouldn't go over nearly as well. "Listen, about what you said—"

" _There_ we go, I knew it. Can't get any peace and quiet around here, I _swear_ —"

"Just let me finish, Amethyst," Garnet interrupted the grumbling. "Something would have done it sooner or later. Probably better for all of us you made it happen sooner. Pearl being upfront about it herself would have been best, but that just wasn't happening."

"The ol' _'Get open, get honest'_ that you like seeing happen so much?"

"Yes. Which is why I think you and Pearl need to have a talk, too."

Amethyst's response was a grunt as she sat up a bit, turning to face Garnet more easily. "Yeah, I guess. Not the worst thing you've ever suggested while trying to get us to play nice."

She brightened up suddenly— it felt only slightly forced, and Garnet wondered for whose benefit it really was. "Hey, but how many grisly futures of me eating weird space slime _did_ you just flip through?"

"None."

"Oh," Amethyst replied in a small voice, green-coated fingers trailing through said space slime with the slightest hint of nervousness. "Still bad, huh?"

Garnet managed another wordless shrug. She hadn't done much in the way of checking futures, not since the first few disastrous attempts after Rose had made her dramatic entrance. Everything approaching focus on the newest re-addition to their family was especially discombobulating and painfully disorienting, leading to little more than splitting headaches. Garnet had managed, in the past few days, to curb her long-honed habit of quick, just-to-make-sure glances, lest the 'splitting' become rather too literal for comfort. The price, of course, was a lack of a sense of direction she hadn't felt in a very, very long time.

So she slowly removed her shades— no barriers on her part— and did something she hadn't done in millennia.

"How are you feeling?" Garnet asked. Amethyst's head shot up at that, with a look that was as surprised as it was wary.

There were many things Amethyst still wasn't fully aware of, a good amount of them things Garnet had long hoped she would never _need_ to be aware of. And maybe she hadn't been there when Garnet had first burst into existence, or when she'd, revelling in the simple truth of being herself, sworn off questions for good. But Amethyst had come to know _Garnet_ , had been eager to understand her as much as Garnet would allow ever since that very first day in the abandoned Kindergarten, and that was clearly enough to make this blatant admittance of uncertainty highly disconcerting.

Then Amethyst huffed, any lingering remnants of pretence and guardedness falling away, making way for slightly confused frustration. "I don't _know_? I mean, it's just like… _Ugh_! I feel like I should be happier Rose is back? Like, we all should be..? But, _man_. It's so… weird, and complicated. I think I was just kinda getting used to the idea of her _not_ being here, you know?"

"I know," said Garnet.

"Yeah, 'course you do. Or, I guess—" Amethyst looked at Garnet from behind her bangs. She'd gotten up and started pacing at some point during her rant, and she still had to look _up_. "How're _you_ doing?"

Garnet let another brief silence stretch between them, then smiled a humorless smile. "It's complicated."

"I bet." Amethyst shifted from foot to foot, toying with one of the robonoid's two remaining legs. "Um, well, if you want to talk about it… uh…"

"I think I'd better talk about it with myself first."

"Right. Right. You go and, er, do that." Garnet wasn't sure if Amethyst sounded more relieved or disappointed.

"And thanks," she added after a small pause. "For checking in on me, I mean. 'Preciate it."

Garnet liked to think she had a decent enough idea of how her teammates worked, and what they needed. After the thousands of years spent together, and recently fourteen years spent trying to keep them all from falling apart in countless constantly threatening and potentially disastrous ways, she certainly hoped that she did. It had been a bit harder to learn what _she_ needed from _them_ in return, and when.

She pulled Amethyst into a hug, robonoid and all, tangling one hand in her hair to hold her closer. "You're important to us, Amethyst. You're important to me. Don't ever doubt that."

"Aw, geez, G." Garnet could feel warmth flooding the face that had immediately nuzzled into her shoulder, and she gave a little squeeze in return. "You got me all… mushy." The puffs of air Amethyst's giggles were now producing tickled the side of her neck. "Get it? Mushy? 'Cause-"

No Future Vision would have spared her the line of green robonoid goo suddenly and surprisingly precisely smeared over her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Garnet sighed, but couldn't keep the smile off her face as she broke the embrace and pulled away just enough to face a grinning Amethyst.

" _Love_ the new look," Amethyst said. "Say hi to the lovebirds for me."

"Will do."

Garnet stood up and turned away, not bothering to rematerialize her visor as she followed the familiar path back to the Burning Room.

The heat from the lava pool washed over her like a wave as soon as she emerged from the ceiling puddle. It couldn't harm her, of course, and usually she found it quite pleasant— enough to often take a few moments and indulge in just letting herself _feel_ it— but just then all it felt like was oppressively thick. In bubbles above her hung hundreds upon hundreds of Gems: friends, enemies, and strangers alike— all of them in pieces one way or another, suspended, waiting, waiting, _waiting_...

Her eyes couldn't help but seek out the newest bubble, the one which held the Breaking Point. She let her gaze trail further up and it hitched almost painfully on the bubble that still contained Bismuth herself. A rather large part of her felt tempted to retreat back into the comforting twilight of Amethyst's room and the always anchoring, and always welcome tangibility and physicality of its owner.

That wouldn't help, though.

What Garnet found she'd been craving for quite a while, was a _break_. She felt worn down. One crisis after another, with nothing even remotely like enough time in between to recover from things like the painful betrayal of one's oldest, most trusted friend; or the threat of invasion from forces which hopelessly outmatched anything Garnet could hope to put together; or another sorely missed companion coming back from the dead only to expose a web of lies— of omission and not— tangled around them all.

And now, Rose herself, bringing with her not a single solution and opening up so many new avenues of disaster. An utter muddling of potential futures that no amount of meditation had any chance of clearing up.

Pearl was a conflicted mess, and Garnet couldn't fault her for it. Amethyst was grappling with things her own way. Greg seemed both unimaginably happy and subtly, remotely sad about this odd, barely dreamed-of second chance, and Steven, well... Steven was something of a puzzle, as was true of his entire existence, but he was a loving, caring, and eternally meddling one, striving to make the best out of every situation.

 _What about you?_

What about her? Well, she'd done her best to be the pillar, to reassure, to stomp out fires before they could get out of hand, to urge people to talk before things between them went from frosted over to permanently ice-bound. Exactly what she'd always done her best to be and to do for all of them, ever since—

Ever since Rose had left.

Garnet set down on the hard rock floor and crossed her legs. She cupped her hands in her lap, closed all three of her eyes, and let herself sink into feeling nothing but the glowing warmth that matched the hues playing on the inside of her eyelids.

Though she did not need to, Garnet breathed.

An infinite plane stretched out before her, blues and reds and purples swirling together. Through the expanse walked Ruby and Sapphire, hand in hand.

Ruby watched her partner sidelong as they continued on. At first glance, Sapphire seemed as calm as ever, her face serene, steady. But Ruby could see the signs of stress, subtle as they were. The way Sapphire's gaze would remain fixed on the nonexistent horizon, before her brow would pinch and she'd look down quickly. The too-stiff way she held herself that made Ruby want to look for the tell-tale dusting of ice crystals. The resistance, the pull on Ruby's hand, which made her think that if she let go, Sapphire might just stop moving entirely.

And of course, Ruby could quite literally _feel_ Sapphire's anxiety, fluttery and frantic.

"Okay," Ruby said, forcing some confidence into her voice. "Alright. We just gotta make a plan."

"Easier said than done."

Ruby threw her hands into the air. "Gah! _Everything's_ easier said than done!"

Sapphire stopped walking.

"Sorry," she said. "You're right, of course. We _do_ need a plan. It's just…"

"Frustrating!"

Sapphire nodded. "I'm sorry you have to put up with this."

Ruby's eyebrows flew up. " _You're_ sorry?"

"If I could just See _clearly_ …"

"Hold up." Ruby swept forward, wrapping her arms around Sapphire and looking her straight in the eye. "This isn't your fault, okay?"

There was a pause. "I know," Sapphire said. "But it helps to hear you say that."

Ruby put on her most smouldering of looks. "Would it help to hear me say _other_ things?"

Giggling, Sapphire leaned into her. " _Maybe_."

 _Focus_ , Garnet thought.

The two sobered, though they did not pull away. Rather, they pulled each other closer, and moved to rest on the ground in the kind of wordless agreement they were long used to. Ruby curled up so her head laid softly against Sapphire's chest, keeping one arm around her waist and letting the other slowly run through Sapphire's thick hair. She held herself uncharacteristically still otherwise, but even through this show of restraint Sapphire could feel Ruby's anger, could sense the desire to just get up and charge forward and demand answers. Knew, almost as well as she knew her own feelings, that the steady, soothing, repetitive motion was Ruby's way of clamping back on that instinct.

"Let's ask tonight," Ruby announced. "Like we said before: better sooner than later."

They all considered the prospect. This was probably the best opportunity they'd get for some time: Pearl had gone out, hopefully to have a long conversation with Sheena, and Amethyst seemed in no mood to leave her room. Eventually Steven and Greg would fall asleep, and Garnet would hopefully be able to corner Rose Quartz on her own.

Or they could delay longer. Keep watching Rose. See if they could glean any other hints that might provide important context. See if their Future Vision might finally settle down.

But it had already been almost a week, and it hadn't improved yet. And the best context they could hope to receive would be from Rose Quartz directly.

"Maybe…" Sapphire began, then trailed off.

"Yes?" said Ruby.

"We could unfuse. Confront her separately."

Unconsciously, Ruby's hand clutched at Sapphire's hair. "Do you… do you want to unfuse?"

"I don't— no. No," said Sapphire. "But I'm not certain if I'm helping you very much right now. Maybe you'd be better on your own for this. And maybe it'd show Rose just how serious this is."

"I'd just end up yelling at her," said Ruby.

"Maybe she deserves to get yelled at," said Sapphire.

There was a pained silence.

 _Maybe she does,_ thought Garnet. _Maybe she doesn't. But getting angry for the sake of getting angry won't help any of us._

The couple sighed.

"Being the reasonable one **sucks** ," said Ruby.

"Yes," said Sapphire.

Slowly, Ruby's grip loosened, and she allowed her hand to fall and rest on Sapphire's shoulder. Sapphire reached up and placed her own hand on top of it, taking a moment to appreciate the difference in size and the familiarity of the gesture.

"We need to ask her how she came here," said Sapphire. " _Exactly_ how."

"Yeah," said Ruby. "But the _why_ she came here is even more important. We gotta know what happened, and gotta make sure we're not in danger."

"We must to tell Rose what happened in _our_ time, as well. She needs to understand how things are different."

 _That_ would be perhaps the most daunting part of all of it. So much of these past fourteen years would be so difficult to explain— so much they still barely understood themselves.

"Should we plan a script?" Sapphire wondered.

After a moment, Ruby shook her head. "Let's just go to Rose and see what happens. Maybe she'll open up on her own."

Sapphire smiled ruefully. "Seems unlikely."

 _Unlikelier things have happened,_ thought Garnet.

Strange new ground was waiting to be covered, riddled with potential and threat, and the need for direct, unflinching honesty was what they all found themselves agreeing on. Ruby and Sapphire smiled at each other, bright, and pure, and earnest. Neither of them knew how the rest of the night would go, or what would happen in the perfectly opaque days laid before them. But there was always comfort to be found in the enduring truth that whatever else, they had each other, and they had Garnet.

They pulled each other close, and kissed, lightly and sweetly.

Garnet got up, stretched her legs, and made for the door to the Temple.

oOoOo

 _Authors' Note:_ And we're back!

We want to give a huge thanks to everyone in the comments— the response to this fic so far, and especially to the last chapter, has been amazing. We've even got a TVTropes page now! Shoutout to whoever is responsible for that, you have no idea how encouraging it all is. Reading everyone's speculation and theories is always a blast.

Alternate Summary: Garnet gets introspective, Amethyst gets goopy (literally), Ruby and Sapphire get goopy (figuratively).


	10. Glitch City

_Summary:_ Video games and donuts may be a cure for a great many ills, but Steven learns they're not as good at answering questions as people are.

oOoOoOo

 **Chapter Nine**  
 **Glitch City**

"So, Steven, got any cool, new stuff to show your old man?"

As far as distractions went, it was a pretty obvious one, but Steven didn't mind. He could use some distracting right now.

"Boy, do I!" he said, leaping to his feet. "You gotta check out the new _Overtale_ update, Dad, it's so cool! There are new skins and everything!"

" _Overtale_ , huh?" Dad said, absently scratching his head. "Remind me again, is that the one with the dungeon and the guy with the rocket launcher, or the one where you're a monster trying to survive in a land full of weird humans?"

Steven shook his head.

"It's a genre-blended, multimode co-operative team-based competitive FPS e-sport with an epic single-player RPG campaign that's driven by player-choices. At least, that's what it said on the box."

"English, Stuball?"

"Well, it's kind of like _Squad Castle 2_ mashed together with _House of Heroes_ but set in _Bright Spirits_ , with a ladder system and some microtransactions for cosmetic stuff."

When Dad gave him a look of helpless incomprehension, Steven tried to think of a way to simplify it further, but drew a blank.

"... _maaaay_ be it'll be easier to show you," he said. "You go make yourself comfy— I'll grab some snacks!"

He was halfway to the kitchen before he realised that she should probably at least put the dirty dinner dishes in the sink. Pearl normally snatched them up at the end of dinner and did them straight away unless Garnet was there to point out that the chore wheel insisted it was somebody else's turn. Even then, Pearl usually did them anyway.

But Garnet wasn't here to insist: she was in the Temple with Amethyst, hopefully giving her the big hug Steven wished he could. And Pearl hadn't even made it all the way home. She'd handed the van keys to Garnet as soon as they'd pulled up at the car wash, and just... _walked away_. She hadn't come home yet, and Steven had a sinking feeling that Amethyst was right and that it'd take a while for her to come back. Maybe even days.

Mom _had_ come home, but she'd seemed upset and gone straight to her room and missed dinner.

Whatever the fight had been between Pearl and Mom at the supermarket, it had been _bad_. Really bad. And the way Pearl had been acting around Mom was weird too, even before that, and not just about Mystery Girl calling. It was like Pearl wasn't actually happy to see Mom. It didn't seem like Garnet or Amethyst were really happy either, though Garnet was pretending to be. And Mom was...

 _Uggh._ Silly Steven, getting distracted from being distracted. He could check up on Garnet and Amethyst later, and maybe text Pearl. And maybe see if Mom's room would let him in to see her. In the meantime, there were dishes, leftover doughnuts, and Dad.

oOo

"Why isn't anybody on the trolley? I thought the whole point of this map was to move the trolley to the station."

"Dad, nobody gets on the trolley until there's less than thirty seconds left in the round."

"Wouldn't it be easier if everyone got on it from the start?"

"Maybe? I don't know— I don't think anyone's ever tried— oh _dang_."

Steven lowered the controller slightly as, on screen, his current character fell off a ledge and died, and the replay video began to run. He seemed to be dying an awful lot in this match. It was always a bit harder to play and explain at the same time (he left the Let's Plays for Connie, who was a better multi-tasker), but Dad was coming back to video games after a long absence (he seemed to have started and stopped playing games with _Ping_ which was _aaancient_ ). Steven tried though. Dad tried too. And, even when he didn't understand what was going on, Steven knew he could always count on his Dad to cheer him on.

"Bad luck, kiddo. Commiseratory doughnut?"

"Don't mind if I do," Steven said, and accepted half of a chocolate-glaze with cherry sprinkles.

Donuts leftover in the fridge were never as nice as ones fresh from the Big Donut, but he didn't really mind. He was pretty sure only a true Connoisseur of Deep-Fried Delights like him would notice the slight hint of staleness beneath the glaze. He hastily crammed the remaining two-thirds in his mouth as he realised the respawn counter was approaching fifteen seconds.

"Hmmf mubee phuld phang," he began, swallowed, and tried again. "Maybe I should change healers," he clarified, more for Dad's benefit than his own. "Luriel's AOE effect is good, but Serif's aerial support abilities might just be able to turn things around."

"Is she the one with the wings?"

"No, the jetpack. See?"

A few quick button presses and Steven was back in the game with a new character, racing out of the spawn, and hopefully towards victory.

"Ok, so, what I'm going to try to do here," he said, crouching Serif behind a cargo container, "is double-jump and get on top of the container, and then use my jet boost to get up really high and see where I'm needed the most. I have to be careful though because there's a clipping issue with the skybox they're going to patch out but haven't yet, and you can float right through the map if you're unlucky."

"Steven, I've gotta be honest here: I have absolutely _no_ idea what you're talking about. Were all of those words even English?"

"Mind if I join you?"

Steven nearly dropped his controller. Lost in the game— and in trying to teach Dad a few things— he hadn't heard the Temple door open, or Mom walking right up to the bottom of the stairs. Judging by the surprised and then happy look on Dad's face, he hadn't heard her either.

"Of course!" Dad said, before Steven could say anything. "Pull up a, er, pillow!"

On the TV, the barely-spawned Serif died after drifting into an easily-avoided laser field and Steven sighed. Maybe that was enough video games for the night.

He put the controller down and started to shuffle over to make more room. Mom took up a lot of space, and not just physically (but mainly physically). She was practically a giant woman all on her own and everything in the house— everything human— seemed a bit too small for her. Like that one time when he went down to the playground in the park and tried to ride the bouncy horses like he had when he was little, and ended up with his knees tucked up under his chin and not really having any fun at all.

Would he get as big as Mom, one day? He tried to imagine it, looking down on the world, on everyone. He'd have to be so careful moving around, or he'd break things, or be like Garnet that one time she'd forgot about the door frame and Amethyst had laughed until she was sick. Just one of Mom's hands could practically fit around his entire head. The whole controller could fit in her palm, the same way Pearl's phone had.

Would his hands get too big to hold a controller one day, too?

"Oh no, don't stop on my account!" Mom said, ducking her head as she reached the top of the stairs. "Whatever it is you're doing looks _interesting_."

"It's a video game," Dad said. "What did you call it again, Steven? _Overtale_?"

"Yeah."

It took a little while to get the three of them and the assortment of snacks all settled down comfortably, but it worked out pretty neatly in the end. Mom sat behind them both, close enough that Dad could lean back against her. Steven could too, if he wanted to. The remaining snacks and drinks were between him and Dad, still within easy reach.

As he picked up the controller again, Steven realised that an introduction might be in order: it was hard to imagine life without them, but video game consoles weren't even really around when Mom had… had _become_ him.

But wait. That wasn't quite right, was it? Mom hadn't said all that much about how she'd gotten here, except that she had the time thingy and that she'd come _back_ , rather than forward or sideways _._ That meant she was from the future. A future where things were really bad, because the Diamond Authority had come back.

A future where, he abruptly realised, he had to be dead. If Mom was here, and she was from the future, he had to be dead. And Dad… Dad too. Mom hadn't known his name was Steven. If Dad could have, he would have told her. And the Gems would have told her too. That meant—

Strange feelings were a dime a dozen for Steven Universe, but this one ranked right up there. It was like goosebumps, but inside his head, and he kind of felt like he was going to be sick, or cry, or both. But at the same time, his chest felt lighter, almost like he was... _relieved_?

He was dead. Dad was dead. The Gems were dead.

No, wait, that wasn't right. They _would_ die. If things went like they were supposed to, Garnet and Amethyst and Pearl and Dad would— they'd _die_. But Mom had come back to make sure things went differently.

"Steven?' Dad asked, looking concerned.

 _Ok, Steven, breathe. Existential crises are for later. Connie can help. Right now, just_ breathe _. A great big one, in and out, nice and slow, like a sigh._

He took a deep breath and let it out— just like Garnet had taught him— and then smiled over at his dad.

"Sorry, I was just thinking that I might change games. It's kind of hard to explain this one and play at the same time. Speaking of explaining, this is a controller," he said, holding it up for Mom to see clearly. "You can have up to four of these at a time hooked up to the game console. I have a couple of consoles: a Mii, a ZenBox and this one—" He pointed at the unit under the tv. "— is a GameStation. You load a game on the console, and you play it with the controllers."

"Oh, I remember seeing these kinds of things," Mom said. "Didn't you have a console at one point, Greg?"

"Uh, no? Not that I remember. I put down the odd quarter down at Funland, but I never was much of an arcade rat."

"Oh." Mom seemed slightly off put for a second, but quickly rallied. "I wonder where I saw it then. But you press buttons and move the sticks to make things on the screen move, is that right?"

"Exactly! _Overtale_ is an online multi-player game, where you're in a team on one side and you're working together against a team on the other side. I think I might change over to _Bash Battle Brothers_. It's something we can all play together!"

He did just that, swapping out the disc and handing a spare controller each to Dad and Mom. They both began to give their controllers a very doubtful inspection, only to meet each other's eyes halfway through and burst into laughter.

"Finally, worthy competition!" Dad chuckled. "Somebody else who doesn't know what they're doing."

"We'll see about that," Mom said, grinning. "You _know_ I have a competitive streak."

"'Streak'? Yeah, if you can call something five miles wide a 'streak'."

"You wound me, Mr. Universe," Mom said, hand to her heart. Or where a heart would be.

"You'll be saying that again by the end of the first round."

Mom's eyes lit up

"Oh ho ho, it is _on._ Steven, how do we play?"

It actually turned out to be pretty evenly matched, in the end. Well, at least between Mom and Dad (Steven _may_ have been handicapping himself, just a little bit, in the interests of fairness). Dad had more practice and was better with the controller, but Mom was much better at using the environment and her character's powers at the right moment. She was supposed to be a great general, so Steven supposed that made sense.

It was nice. It was actually really _nice_. Kind of what he'd thought it might be like, to have both a Mom and a Dad, and be a normal family. Dad was laughing, and Mom was laughing, and they were both joking with each other and him, and groaning in unison when a character belonging to any of the three of them fell to their death. Steven quickly found himself laughing too, and showing them some of the tricks and secrets hidden in the game.

But even though it was nice, and even though he was definitely having fun, and even though this was something he'd kind of dreamed about, he still felt kind of weird about it. Sometimes, he'd catch himself looking up and over at Mom, during a break in the play, the strange, light feeling returning to his chest and all of the questions he wanted to ask, bubbling back up again, fizzing in his brain. Questions he _still_ hadn't had a chance to ask. Every single time he thought he was ready to try, something would come up, or someone else would walk into the room.

 _Why did you have me? Why did you give me your gem? What other powers am I supposed to have? Am I what you expected? Am I what you wanted me to be? Why did you leave everything behind for me to find? Even the bad stuff?_ Especially _the bad stuff?_

This time, Mom caught him looking up at her. Her brow creased in something like worry, or maybe uncertainty. He didn't know her well enough to tell.

"Are you alright, Steven?"

Steven shook himself and his head.

"Just a bit tired," he said, punctuating his words with a yawn that wasn't forced in the slightest. Mom's lips pursed, like she was going to say something more, but fortunately Dad came to the rescue.

"Man, no wonder! It's way past your bedtime, Steven," Dad said, and tilted his head meaningfully towards the far side of the house and the bathroom. "Teeth and face."

"Awww, Daa- _aaad_ ," Steven protested, though it was mainly show.

"Don't you 'aw dad' me, Stuball. It's past ten." He paused and scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Probably a good thing you don't have to worry about school, huh?"

"Probably!"

Steven grinned, and jumped easily down onto the couch below, feeling satisfied by his floating when he barely made a dent in the cushions. A glance over his shoulder as he stepped down onto the floor revealed two smiling faces looking down at him.

"You have no idea how long it took for me to learn how to do that so easily," Mom said, starry-eyed.

"He's a quick learner," Dad said, leaning back away from the edge and disappearing from view. "The other Gems say he's been coming along really well."

Brushing his teeth (properly) and washing his face (including behind his ears) didn't take all that long, and a quick toilet stop took care of any overnight bladder issues before they started. His pj's were neatly hung from the hook behind the door, just where Pearl had left them for him in the morning.

He took a moment to press the soft flannel to his face, inhaling the fresh, fabric-softener scent— slightly sweet, slightly floral, slightly chemical. Pearl always used the one he liked. And standing here, now, in the bathroom, pulling the top on over his head, he could suddenly remember being much younger, shorter, clumsier, sticking his arms out from his sides so she could help bundle him into his pjs. Sometimes she'd kneel on the floor to help him with the buttons, teasing him and fixing it when he got the sequence wrong.

 _Oh_ , he _hoped_ she was alright. It was supposed to snow tonight. Maybe he should have gone after her, even if Garnet had shaken her head at him, ever so slightly, when he'd thought about doing just that.

Biting his lip, he fished his phone out of the pockets of his discarded pants and dialled Pearl's number. It rang out and went to the message bank, and he was greeted with his own chirpy, tinny voice from the speaker:

" _Hi! You've reached Pearl's phone! She's probably out fighting monsters right now, but if you leave a message after the beep she'll get back to you as soon as she's done saving humanity again. BEEEEEP!"_

"Oh! Um, hey Pearl, it's me. Steven. Um. I wanted to make sure you're, uhh, ok and all and…" Steven sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "And, just, I'm thinking of you and hope you'll be back home soon. Even if things are really weird right now. Um. That's it I guess. Love you."

The trip back up to his bed was rather slower and more somber, but it was still hard not to smile to see Mom and Dad finishing one last game of _B3_. He let the smile turn into another yawn as they packed the console away and made room for him to get into bed.

"Want a story tonight, Stuball?"

He was on the verge of refusing, but found that he couldn't after seeing the way Mom's face lit up at the idea. Besides, it'd probably be nice too. Another one of those things he'd thought about when wondering what it'd be like to have a normal family. And he always liked when the Gems read to him. Amethyst did the best voices. And Garnet had this soft, slow way of reading that made it easy to nod off. And Pearl— well, ok, Pearl wasn't the best of storytellers most of the time, but every once in awhile she'd get really into it, and she had this dramatic, captivating way of talking that made you really feel like you were _there_ , in the story.

"Maybe just one," he said.

oOo

It was an old story, one he'd heard a billion times before, and the small book had the dog-ears and broken spine to prove it. And if, maybe, it was just a little bit, well, _babyish_ for him, he didn't mind. Dad hadn't read him a story in _years_ , and Mom had seemed so enthusiastic about the idea that he would've felt bad for saying no, even if he'd wanted to. And he knew the story well enough that he didn't need to follow what was going on, and could just let the sound of their voices drift over him, carrying him closer and close and closer to sleep.

The creaking of floorboards brought him back to full wakefulness, jerking his head off the pillow just in time to see his parents heading down the stairs. It wasn't long before he heard the sofa groan as they sat down on it, below the loft.

"He's perfect," Mom said softly, breaking the sudden quiet.

"Isn't he? I'm… I'm really glad you got a chance to meet him. He's everything you hoped he'd be."

"More, I think."

Steven blushed, glad there was no way they could see him from down there, and rolled over onto his back.

"Yeah. He's a good kid, and he's got a good heart. And the Gems love him. Everyone does, really."

"I'm glad."

It went quiet again, so Steven closed his eyes and tried to let his breathing even out. Usually, falling asleep— especially if he'd already almost been asleep— was something he could do in his, well… It was easy, was what he meant. But tonight, now that he was fully awake again and knowing that Mom was just below him...

 _What happened to Pink Diamond? Why did you shatter her? Why did you leave Bismuth for me to find? How did you make Lion? Why did you give up on healing the Corruption? Why did you make me? Did you even think about what it would be like for me, not having a mom? Having the Gems watching me, wondering if I'd be able to replace you? Everybody wanting me to be something different?_

Okay, so sleep was out for now. But maybe if he _pretended_ to sleep long enough, Dad would get tired and go back to the van or the car wash for the night. Then he could ask.

"So…" Dad said, so softly Steven wasn't sure he'd heard anything at first. "Do you want to talk about what happened?"

"What happened? I'm not sure what you mean..."

"You seemed pretty upset when you guys got back to the car wash." A pause. "Was it Pearl? Did you two fight?"

"I… Yes. Yes we did. Though I'm not entirely sure I could call it a fight. How did you know?"

"It didn't take a genius, Rose. She made herself scarce pretty quickly when you all got back. Plus, everyone was acting really weird at dinner. What was it?"

There was another pause, this one even longer, filled only by the rustle of clothing and slight creak of the couch as someone's weight shifted. They _had_ been acting weird. The whole thing was weird, actually, even for the Crystal Gems. And it was weirdest of all that Pearl actually seemed _upset_ that Mom was back. Out of everyone, it seemed like she should have been the one happiest to see her again.

Him and Amethyst and Garnet hadn't heard anything, but they'd all seen the end of the fight. Or, well, what looked like Pearl shouting and being upset, and Mom being kind of confused and getting upset, and then Pearl had gone and come back, and neither her or Mom had said anything at all on the drive home. He hoped it hadn't been about Mystery Girl. She seemed… nice. At least, from what Pearl had said. But Pearl had been kind of weird about her too. Touchy, and kind of secretive, and sometimes Steven had seen her, looking up at Mom's portrait with this, well, weird look on her face, like she was waiting to get into trouble.

"Greg? Did you know how she felt about... _us_? Being... together?"

"That she wasn't happy about it?" Steven could hear Dad suck in a long breath through his teeth. "Yee _aaah_. She, uh, made it pretty clear from the outset. And I'm pretty sure that she actually wanted me _dead_ for a while after Steven was born and you were, er, _gone_."

Steven, unseen in the loft, winced. He hadn't really realised, not until him and Dad had taken her to Empire City with them, that Pearl might actually have blamed _Dad_ for Mom not being around anymore. She said she'd never hated him, but then that wasn't exactly the same thing, was it?

"But _why_? I still loved her. Being with you didn't change that. And _you_ never minded that I loved her as much as I loved you."

"That's... not entirely true, Rose. I hated her as much as she hated me. Though, really, she had a lot more reason to."

"I don't understand."

Dad sighed, and Steven held his breath, torn between the urge to listen and learn more, and the sure knowledge that he absolutely, positively, one hundred and ten percent was not supposed to be hearing any of this.

"I moved in on her _girl_ , Rose. I went after you when she as good as told me not to. At first it was because I didn't realise that you two were a thing. And then, when I _did_ understand, I still kept courting you anyway."

"It was my choice to encourage you, Greg. I haven't let anyone make decisions for me in a _very_ long time. Pearl knows that. But I still don't understand why she'd be upset in the first place. Loving you didn't mean I loved her any less."

"Well, that's the rub, isn't it? I think she felt like you did. If I'd been in her shoes, I would have too."

"But—"

"Oh man, how to explain…. Look, Rose, most relationships— most human relationships, anyway— are, well, they're generally just between _two_ people. If you're in a romantic relationship with someone, you don't have romantic relationships with other people at the same time. You commit to love and support one person, and you expect that person to commit to you and put you before anybody else."

"That seems... limiting," Mom said, sounding puzzled. "Why would anyone choose to be like that when you could love and have the love and support of _many_ people?"

"I don't know if I'd call it a _choice_ , not really. For some people, it's just the way they are. You meet someone and fall in love with them, and suddenly they're the centre of your life. You don't need anybody else as long as you have them. I'm like that. When we were together, there wasn't anyone else for me and, honestly, there hasn't really been anyone since. I can't say for sure but if I had to bet on it, I'd say Pearl's the same way. And she has all of that, you know, baggage from your homeworld, which probably doesn't help."

"Oh."

Steven stared up at the dark ceiling, thinking back on the all times Pearl had talked about Mom. For the longest time, he hadn't really understood what to make of their relationship. He still wasn't entirely sure, aside from the fact that they'd obviously loved each other a lot. Sometimes he got the feeling that Pearl hadn't totally understood things either. Or, maybe, if she had, she didn't anymore.

For every enthusiastic trip to some secret spot, for every recreated account of a battle, there was a bitterly guarded secret Steven had to work and work and _work_ at to prise free from her lips. For every fond, lovingly-detailed story, the was an afternoon where she'd scowl and snipe and make it hard for other people to talk about mom. And every time Steven had asked her what his mom, what Rose Quartz was _really_ like, she'd never give him anything concrete. Even her voice would go all kind of vague, soft and fond and warm, but sad and guarded too.

But he didn't think that Pearl had ever loved anyone else, not the way she loved Mom. That was kind of why Mystery Girl was such a big deal.

"Yeah. And when you _are_ like that, it's absolute _torture_ when the person you're in a relationship with falls in love with somebody else and wants to be with them. It's like… It makes you feel… _small_. Like there's something wrong with you. You spend all your time wondering what makes that other person better than you, what _they_ have that _you_ don't."

"But you weren't _better_ , you were just _different_."

"I don't think either of us knew that back then." Dad laughed, but it wasn't the happy kind. "Rose, we _fought_ over you. Bitterly."

"I… I never realised…"

"Well, I guess the one thing we always agreed on was that you didn't need to know about it. It was just between us. She pulled out every trick in the book - and _man_ did she have a few! - but I had some good ones too. After the first year I made it my _mission_ to monopolise all of your time. And I got to be pretty good at it.

"The thing is, you see... The _thing is_ ," Dad repeated, sounding oddly _sad_ , "back then, I couldn't see what you saw in her. At all. Honestly, I thought that you must have been... _pitying_ her or something. I wanted you all to myself— and if you and me being together upset her, it was for the best so she would finally get over you and quit hanging around and interrupting _us_.

"I'm… not really proud of that, these days."

Steven found himself thinking back to all the stories Dad had told him about Mom from when they'd been together, before he'd been born. He knew it hadn't always been easy— Dad had made that very clear, from their first dance to the long stretches without money and sleeping on Onion's Mom's couch— but he'd still made it sound so _nice_. His parents had had their problems, but they'd worked through them. And other than odd human thing that Gems didn't get, or vice versa, there hadn't been any worries at all.

Well, except for Pearl.

Dad had never made Pearl seem like a… like a _bad_ _person_ , or anything. But in his stories she'd always been rude and dismissive and snobby, and sometimes even, well, kind of a jerk. The one, persistent grey cloud in Dad's life, back then. And Steven hadn't really ever questioned it, because he'd realised when he was pretty young that Pearl liked Dad even less than she liked most humans, and she _could_ be a bit of a jerk towards him, and it made Dad nervous, and Steven _hated_ that.

But now he had to wonder what those same stories would be like from Pearl's perspective?

It was funny, but if he thought about it, he probably knew less about Pearl than any of the other Gems, Mom included. She liked to tell stories about the Rebellion, and Mom, and the history of Gems on Earth and explain how things worked, but she never talked about herself. He knew that she had been there, when Mom started the Rebellion, but didn't know _anything_ about what it was like back then, or even how they'd met.

Steven had always been too nervous to ask. And he'd only gotten more nervous about it after the giant robot battle in the barn, because he wasn't just worried about Pearl maybe getting upset anymore. While Pearl and Peridot were battling away in their robots, Garnet and Amethyst had tried to explain to him what Peridot had meant about pearls on the Gem Homeworld, and why, sometimes, you had to pick a side in an argument, and how asking Pearl to be nice to someone who was talking about her like she wasn't actually a person was really, _really_ insensitive, and even pretty mean. And Steven had realised, not long afterwards, that he really, _really_ didn't want to find out that Mom might have _owned_ Pearl once.

"You seem to be getting along better now..?" Mom's voice was tentative, but hopeful, cutting through Steven's thoughts like a sword through thin air.

"That's kind of new. I mean, I didn't really have the energy spare to hate her the first few years after Steven was born, and I guess I kinda got out of the habit." Dad half-groaned, half-sighed. "I didn't know how to talk to her about it though. Especially since I guess not needing to sleep gives Pearl more time to work on her grudges." He chuckled softly. "Steven kind of got sick of us not talking to each other and forced the issue. Turns out we have a lot in common."

"I know."

"Of course you do. We both have great taste in women."

It was a joke. Mom could have laughed. Instead, she kept quiet.

Steven's foot itched. He didn't dare reach down to scratch it. Just when it was becoming utterly unbearable, Mom spoke again.

"Greg, is it… is it _wrong_ for me to love more than one person at once?"

"Some people might say it is, but I don't think so. It's just different. And some people _are_ just different, and in that way too. I mean, we always used to joke about my Uncle Tony running off to join some commune in Golden City and taking half the town with him."

That made sense (well, not the bit about Uncle Tony— just how many Uncles did he _have_ , anyway?). It wasn't really something Steven had thought about a lot, but… Well, people could have lots of different friends and family, and having more never made you love the others less. Steven didn't have anyone he wanted to, like, _kiss_ and stuff—

—Well, there was Connie. Maybe. The whole idea made his face hot and his stomach fluttery. But, well, he liked being with Connie, he liked being Stevonnie— and it was because of Stevonnie that he knew she felt the same way too. There wasn't anyone else he felt that same way about.

But what if someday, he met someone else and he _did_ like them that way? He wouldn't want to have to choose between the two of them… And what if... What if _Connie_ met someone that she liked that way too? Or liked more than him? What if they were, like, teenagers and were _dating_ , and Connie met somebody else and wanted to spend time with them instead?

That thought turned his stomach butterflies into lead weights. If he wouldn't want to have to choose, it wouldn't be fair to ask her to decide between him and someone else. And if he could love more than one person like that, Connie totally could too. But Steven would be lying if he said he'd miss being kind of, well, _special_.

"But," Dad continued, "it's kind of one of those things where everyone involved has to be one hundred percent on the same page, you know? And I don't think the three of us were even reading the same book."

"Maybe," Mom said, and she sounded so sad, in just that one little word, that Steven felt his own eyes begin to tear up. "That might explain why-" She drew in a long, shuddery breath. "I'd just hoped that she'd be happy to see me again. And Garnet and Amethyst too. But they aren't."

"It's been really hard for all of them without you."

That, Steven knew, was an understatement. It'd been hard for him and Dad too. Maybe Dad, most of all, because at least the Gems had each other.

"But you don't seem upset that I'm back..?"

"How could I be?" Dad laughed. "I always wanted to be a family with you. I love you, Rose Quartz."

"You're a smooth talker, Mister Universe."

"I'm a musician, baby. Pure poetry flows through these veins"

Mom chuckled, softly and there was another rustle of cloth, and then a strange, soft noise that Steven, after a few seconds, recognised as the sound of _kissing_. And while Steven was quite fond of romantic movies and stories and, well, romance in general, something about the idea of it being his _parents_ making out on the couch below made him feel a bit queasy.

He turned over on his side, grabbed an extra pillow, and pressed it over his head so that the sound was mostly-muffled. He closed his eyes and replayed Serif strategies in mind until sleep slowly took him.


	11. Show Me What You've Got

**AN:** Hey guys! We're alive!

Last time on Rewriter: Pearl and Rose had a dramatic supermarket parking lot fight. Garnet had a serious talk with Amethyst, and with herself. Steven reflected on what type of people his parents were and are. We posted a Bismuth-centric prequel fic, 'We Forge Our Own Crowns'.

 **Chapter Summary:** Garnet demands answers.

* * *

 **Chapter Ten: Show Me What You've Got**

By the time Garnet took her newly determined steps out of the Burning Room and into the beach house, Steven was tucked into bed, sound asleep, and Greg, sprawled out on the couch below, looked very close to following him. Garnet caught the tail end of him clumsily kissing a hovering Rose goodnight and nodding off under her heavy but not entirely readable gaze.

Amethyst was likely still in her room where Garnet had left her a short while ago. Pearl wasn't coming back tonight— Garnet wasn't sure if this was something she knew or something she merely hoped. Pearl needed time. They all did. The most uncertain thing was how much of it they would all get to take. Garnet didn't think highly of her own chances on that particular front.

But she was used to it. Of course she was.

In the meantime, she busied herself with putting away the freshly washed plates and other reminders of the awkward dinner. She'd just finished sorting the cutlery into appropriate drawer compartments when a presence at her side drew her attention: Rose, looking very out of place in the small kitchen, holding out a slightly damp fork like it was a peace offering. "You missed this one."

Garnet nodded her thanks and turned to place it with the others. A hand on her elbow interrupted her again.

"I… don't actually know where this goes," Rose admitted, gazing almost contritely down at the large glass bowl she'd picked up in her attempts to help.

"It's okay. Here," Garnet took it from her and placed it into the cupboard above. "Pearl has a system."

Rose flinched, looking the furthest thing from happy, and the hurt confusion she seemed to radiate dispelled any possible remaining doubts about which path her first real conversation with Pearl had taken, no extra magical sight necessary. For a few moments she seemed incredibly intent on the cupboard's contents, as if studying and deciphering the color-coded stacks of dishes would somehow help her comprehend Pearl better and offer up a handy ceramic and microwave-safe key to solving all of her problems. Then she opened her mouth to speak, but Garnet raised a hand to cut her off, pointing up at the bundle of lightly snoring blankets that was Steven and then to the larger, louder one that was Greg. "Outside."

Rose closed the cupboard and followed her out without a word.

The sea was calm, the regular, rhythmic sound of it a favored, soothing presence in the back of Garnet's mind. There weren't many stars to be seen in the overcast sky, but it was just as well. Better to have as few distractions as possible, and the matters she and Rose had to deal with were entirely Earthly.

The two of them continued down onto the beach and further into the night, Garnet leading, Rose trailing just behind, until they were a safe, solid distance from the porch and the sleeping Universes, and well away from the town. Just in case.

Garnet sat down in the sand and Rose followed her example, her dress spreading out around her in the chilly breeze. As soon as she noticed the pale pink hem brushing against Garnet's thigh, Rose frowned and gathered it back, tucking it under herself. It was an odd gesture, especially out of place for a Gem who'd always been one for generous, casual, and open physical contact.

 _Don't ever question this_ , and a pair of hands cupping Garnet's own, dwarfing them, deliberately gentle but with a clear strength, momentarily restrained.

 _You're a wonder, a gift, someone truly beautiful. They just don't understand. But one day they will,_ said with a warm, solid arm draped over Garnet's shoulders making it very, very hard to disbelieve the words, whatever shape the futures before her eyes spun into.

 _Of course we will win. With Gems like you on our side, fighting for what we believe in, how could we ever lose?_ came with a hug that was enveloping and a bit overwhelming, but very welcome, and, if Garnet allowed herself to indulge, the world could so easily become, even if only for a moment, exactly as beautiful and peaceful and wildly free as Rose Quartz willed it to be.

"There must be a lot you want to know about, well, about me," Rose both broke the silence and broke Garnet out of her reverie. "Please, go ahead."

But Garnet took her time, letting herself study the Gem before her a bit more. The way she kept her gaze down and fixed on her fingers pressing into the sand beneath, as if looking for an anchor for the impending and inevitable conversation she wasn't much looking forward to. The way many of her smiles failed to reach her eyes— far more than Garnet remembered being the case, even during the darkest of their times.

So many small movements and inflections kept adding to the startling and oddly off-putting contrast to that Rose of so long ago and not so long ago, determined and insistent on not doubting and not questioning even in the face of unbelievable, unprecedented things in a way that seemed to come as naturally to her as breathing did to humans. She was still trying, it seemed, this Rose, but a lot of her outward assurance felt forced - and, well, she was outright encouraging Garnet to ask questions. Or maybe she was trying to play some kind of game - either way, Garnet didn't appreciate the additions to her own already troubling disorientation.

Or maybe— maybe Rose, _her_ Rose, had always been this way, and Garnet had only allowed herself to see what she'd wanted to see, what both she and Rose had wanted and needed Rose to be. Maybe they all had, her and Pearl and Amethyst.

That particular line of thought she filed away for that indeterminable _later_.

"You used the Glass of Time to come here," she said instead, curt and to the point.

"I did," Rose replied simply, and offered, to Garnet's slight twinge of frustration, nothing else.

 _No more questions,_ Rose had told her, a long, long time ago.

"It's not something to be tampered with lightly. Not something you'd use on a whim."

"No. It wasn't an easy call to make, you're right. A difficult decision, in a difficult time, but one I had to make."

There was a world of conversations to be had there, about difficult choices and being the one tasked with making them. Conversations Garnet realised she could potentially now have with someone who undoubtedly understood on a level few could ever hope to. A very particular burden that suddenly had a hope of being shared, and thus lightened. And with Rose somehow miraculously here again, well-versed in the trials of leadership, perhaps Garnet wouldn't have to do so much of it by herself (though not alone, never alone). Perhaps Garnet could—

It was tempting, to be sure, but—

"We were- it was a desperate moment. And the Sea Shrine reformed, just in time..." Rose trailed off, then gave a quiet, bitter chuckle. "I remember when a hundred Earth years would fly by like no time at all for us. Now... I don't think I could have waited even one."

Her fingers traced senseless patterns in the sand, and her voice grew even quieter and more strained. "Not after all that had happened, not when I'd lost both of them, and..."

Garnet kept her silence, kept her guesses to herself, and let Rose take her time, now that she seemed to be growing... well, perhaps not _comfortable_ with telling more of the tale, but _willing_ , in any case. Rose swallowed, and finally looked up, in an attempt to come as close as she could to meeting Garnet's eyes. Meeting, Garnet knew, no gaze but that of her own reflection.

"Do you know? The last thing we ever did was fight. Pearl and I. We were arguing over something so unimportant I can barely remember it, like we seemed to always be doing, those final few years— when I even managed to find her at all. And then Homeworld came and she was... gone. Right before my eyes, right- right here, on the beach. I never got to say goodbye."

Homeworld came, and the Shrine reformed. A solid timeline of events was emerging that Garnet didn't like one whit— because it didn't seem possible.

"I'll never forget the _sound_ of it. This horrible crunching, grinding noise, like… like ice against stone. And then she looked up at me and sighed and her gem just... _disintegrated_ , and it was on the beach, Garnet, on the _beach_ , and there was sand and water everywhere and the downdraft from the ship kicked everything up and I couldn't find enough of her to even try bringing her back."

 _A ship, on the beach._ Easier to focus on than the sand under her own palms and the all-too-vivid description of her dear companion's end, pulled straight out of some of the very worst of the visions she'd had to soldier through and work hard to avert, over the years.

"It was just like… you remember the battle beneath the Sky Spire? Just like then, and like the war had never truly ended. There was a ship, and a jasper, and as fast I was with my shield, Pearl was faster."

Even though Garnet was the one with the power to control it, Pearl had always been like lightning on her feet. Especially when Rose was concerned. Pearl would be there to meet every blade, stop every bludgeon, knock aside every arrow, without fail, and without a care for the cost to her own self. Rose's tale was grim, but all too believable.

"She didn't have to do it— I was right there, my sword was right _there_ , and I was ready to fight— and it was just one jasper, with no backup besides a low-level technician. She didn't have to. She _never_ had to fight any of my battles or take any blows for me. I never wanted her to! Sometimes I thought of ordering her to stop, of forbidding it, but—" her words cut off, mouth twisted in frustration. Rose bowed her head, fingers digging into the sand almost painfully, almost as if she hoped— or feared— she'd find nacreous flakes sifting through it. "She didn't need to prove anything, not to me. Not to anyone."

"To herself," was Garnet's simple answer to that age-old conundrum, and one that she and Pearl, and inevitably the rest of the Crystal Gems with them, had had to confront anew in recent times. The rest of Rose's words nagged at the back of her mind, too— a ship, a jasper, and a peridot— an eerily familiar setup. "Pearl's always had a lot to prove to herself."

Pearl had called herself many things, over the centuries: Rose's knight, Rose's confidante, Rose's right hand, Rose's, Rose's, Rose's. But also, loudly, and with a forceful pride, _nobody's_.

It was always such a strange, often troubled, double-edged sword, that. Pearl was Rose's, and Pearl was nobody's, and Rose was Pearl's... most of the time. And that might have all been fine and good if Pearl hadn't – didn't still bear the scars of Homeworld's oppression, thousands of years of knowing that she was only some _thing_ if she was someone's, and to be nobody's was to be nothing, worthless, useless.

Garnet had known all of that. Part of her was Ruby, after all. But even knowing that, and knowing that Pearl would take Rose's loss hardest, Garnet had been utterly unprepared for the way that Pearl had completely collapsed in on herself, to the point where she'd seemed incapable of owning herself, her actions anymore. In hindsight, she'd realised it was a problem centuries in the making, each new claim on Rose's affection leaving Pearl feeling a bit less wanted, a bit less _hers_.

 _No matter how hard I try to be strong like you_ , she'd said between tears, as if they were an apology, as if it excused any of what she'd done. And for a precious few moments, the words had only made Garnet angrier. The Terrifying Renegade, the Gem who'd taught Garnet how to fight, how to lead, how to come up with a dozen witty taunts and comebacks, how to bear up under unimaginable pressure, was not _'just a pearl_ '. There was no such thing as 'just a pearl', in the same way that there was no such thing as 'just a ruby'. And Pearl, of all Gems, should have known that.

 _When we fuse, I can feel what it's like to be you. Confident and secure, and complete. You're perfect. You're the perfect relationship, you're always together._

Going for months on end - sometimes years - without seeing Rainbow had had its ways of making Garnet feel a twinge of strange, almost second-hand worry for her own existence. But then again, she couldn't ever quite imagine her existence being that precarious, and Rainbow had been such a delight to have around when she did appear that it had been easy to overlook the short duration of her stays, or the length of time between them. It had been remarkably easy, in all the sheer mess of Rose leaving, to overlook the fact that losing Rose meant losing Rainbow, too.

Rose continued softly as Garnet did her best to wrest her feelings back into place. "It all followed from there, quickly enough. Small mercies, I suppose. But there was just so much, Garnet. Pearl, and Greg, and then... Amethyst, and…"

 _And me_ , Garnet suspected. Rose was trying to spare her this however she could— or she was hiding something for her own benefit. It stung, deeply, that Garnet didn't feel she could ever again be certain which was the case.

"I couldn't allow it. I couldn't… live with it," Rose finished.

 _But did you leave someone else to deal with it all? Did you ever ask what it was_ they _wanted?_ Garnet found herself wondering, before she forced down the bitterness, and lifted her hand to rub at her temples.

Too many questions. But one seemed extra pressing, and felt like the key to untangling the entire mess.

"You didn't tell me what happened to Steven, and how you were able to come back."

Rose looked taken aback at that. "I… I never had Steven."

Garnet froze.

Many things snapped into place, and brought with them a host of new conundrums. Rose had not travelled back in time from some horrid, doomed future, but rather— sideways? The impact would have been immense, and small wonder Garnet's head felt fit to burst when she attempted to peer through possible futures. At least the point of divergence— or, well, one of them— seemed more or less clear. But it was a kind of manipulation and alteration none of them had ever faced, let alone attempted— not that they had ever dared tamper with the Legendary Glass of Time.

Rose didn't seem to notice her turmoil. "It was something I'd thought of, yes, so much— a child! A human child, growing and learning and changing, with infinite promise from the moment they're born. But I… I just... never went through with it."

She never had Steven. Because of… fear? A sense of responsibility to them, her only remaining companions? Greg? Something else? There were very few, if any, things Garnet knew of that could make Rose Quartz second guess herself, let alone give up on something entirely.

"I am so glad," Rose continued in her own little bubble, softly, even reverently. "So grateful that I have gotten to see him, that I am getting to meet him now, and with all of you, after everything..."

Rose, who had come to them with a Glass of Time that wasn't quite like the one they'd known, and a Breaking Point that was much like the one Steven had described to them, and who had only just started painting what was hopefully the entire picture before Garnet's eyes.

"Bismuth helped you." Garnet stated plainly, and only slightly pointedly.

That provoked a clear reaction: a barely suppressed flinch and a flash of wide-eyed surprise, even a hint of fear. To her credit, Rose didn't even attempt to evade, or deny. But she didn't seem to be very forthcoming on the subject, either. "She did. Sometime after I... dealt with the jasper, we managed to capture the technician. A peridot, here to reactivate the Kindergarten, and check on..."

Rose cut herself off and cast a concerned glance at Garnet. She seemed to be considering something intently, biting her lip and glancing off into the very carefully and deliberately empty space between the two of them. Then, courage gathered, she reached over and placed both her hands on Garnet's.

And just like that Garnet was thrown into feeling like a stumbling, brand-new fusion again, her right to exist suddenly being acknowledged and even celebrated by a Gem she'd been taught to fear and resent. _Rose_ was here, Rose was worried about her and her feelings and offering unconditional support—

Garnet allowed herself a few moments' indulgence.

She loved holding Steven's hand, warm and tiny and soft in hers, so very precious and so very fragile, too. She liked the feel of Pearl's shoulder blade under her palm, sharp and thin and very adamantly demanding its presence be acknowledged. And there was nothing quite like running her fingers through Amethyst's hair, as fluffy and comforting as it was wild and uncontrollable.

But Rose's hands on hers were solid and enveloping and bore a promise of protection, and a feeling Garnet hadn't properly realized she'd missed as much as she had. _It's not your fault. I'm going to take care of it all,_ they seemed to say. _I'm going to take care of you. All you need to worry about is being yourself, and loving yourself. The simple, profound joy of just getting to exist, remember?_

It would be so _easy_. Let Rose step up for a while again, let her bear the burdens and juggle the demands and try to achieve the impossible every day.

But she remembered, too, their return home from the awful, horrifyingly informative visit to the Kindergarten. Amethyst had nestled in her lap, purring away and making horrible jokes just to distract her and stop her from shutting herself off in her mind. Pearl had made her the hottest coffee she could manage with simple human tools, and had tightly held her hands around Garnet's on the steaming mug, not allowing them to shake. And Steven had been there, of course, ready with fluffy blankets and an entire brigade of stuffed animal guards.

Garnet took a deep breath, then slowly released it.

"The fusion experiments. The Cluster."

Rose started in surprise. "You know-?"

Garnet nodded, hands still tucked underneath Rose's and clenched tightly over the gems in each of her palms, letting the shiver of horror and disgust of the memory pass through her without touching her. _It's okay, it's okay, it's okay._

"We captured Peridot, too. And worked with her to stop the Cluster from emerging."

"You stopped it? How?"

"Steven did. And the Cluster helped. It's still there, in the Earth. But bubbled."

"Bubbled? I had to- I was forced to destroy it. _Shatter_ it. It was the only way- **Stars**! Garnet, they were so _scared_. In so much pain." Rose shook her head, as if desperate to clear it of crowding thoughts. "I had to end it, I had to give them some sort of… peace."

"So you used the Breaking Point," Garnet cut in.

Rose stiffened, and withdrew her hands from atop Garnet's. It was time to push on, Garnet knew, whether she felt like it or not. Yet another thing laid squarely on her shoulders, because she knew she could carry it.

She drew in a slow breath and straightened her shades, with a passing thought at all the little things Pearl liked to do to keep her hands busy. "Our Rose never told us about Bismuth. Worse, she lied to us, which means you must have too. You came to find us when we were grieving at the entrance to the Forge we thought would never open again, looked both Pearl and me in the eyes, and _lied_."

Rose sat up straight, hands folded in her lap.

"It was too much of a risk." This was a clearly the start of a thought-out and well-rehearsed speech of an explanation, from a Rose who'd had millennia to prepare and put her often impulsive self under control. "You know how well-loved she was— you know how much I loved her, too! But if she'd split our forces during the height of our fight against Homeworld, we would have been obliterated. I couldn't allow even the possibility of infighting— surely you understand?"

"I've had time to think about it, too, Rose," Garnet interjected. "And I can understand, from a tactical standpoint, why you would bubble her. I can even come up with a few reasons why you'd think lying to us would be a good idea. Even if it hurts me, and maybe even offends me. But you kept her there for _thousands of years_. Long after everything was over. You— you left, here, without telling us. And you left her for Steven to find and deal with, long after you were gone."

"That wasn't me. You said it yourself: I'm not the Rose who left you." _For better or worse._

"But you left _there_. Wherever— whenever it is you came to us from. You abandoned that place, and everyone in it."

She half-wished Pearl was by her side, to voice the flood of questions. _How does the Glass of Time, newly remade, even work? Was there an entire universe out there, now one rose quartz short?_

 _Was there a Garnet who suddenly found herself faced with a world without Rose in it, in what felt like the blink of an eye and without the months to prepare? With no Steven in her place, and no new someone to love?_

 _Or had that world simply stopped existing at all?_

Garnet suppressed a shudder of sympathy for people she both knew and would never know, and an odd anger on their behalf. Or was it hers?

"I had to!" Rose protested. "I had to— Garnet, if you'd seen what I've seen, you'd understand—"

Garnet felt a hot mixture of feelings bubbling up and grit her teeth against it. " _You_ ," she ground out, barely audible, "don't get to say that. For every horror you could have seen wherever it is you've come from, I've had to watch tens, _hundreds_ unfold and then do everything in my power to prevent them from happening. _You're_ the one who doesn't understand."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply— oh, I just keep ruining everything."

But Garnet was ready to be done with the conversation, and had no patience left for self-pitying excuses. "Tell me what happened, back where you're from. Tell me why you're here, and what you hope to accomplish."

"I did! I told you—"

"You told us a lot of things, Rose. And I've always respected your need to keep secrets, even when I didn't understand it. But it's not the time for that." Garnet drew herself up, all signs of a casual slouch gone from her posture. "As the leader of the Crystal Gems, I need you to tell me everything. I have to know what we're facing, and what you did, and I need you to be honest with me. You know both mine and Sapphire's ties to the flow of time, and you're the one who meddled into it. I can't lead anyone half-blind. I refuse to."

It wasn't, perhaps, the discussion of leadership Garnet had found herself wanting to have, earlier. But it felt necessary all the same.

Rose sat up and tried to look her in the eye again, almost solemn. "You already know the most important parts. I promise. I never meant to cause trouble, or put any of you in danger. There's a lot I don't understand about what Bismuth did to the Glass."

"But you used it anyway." And oh, that was so very _Rose_ , that it would have evaporated any remaining doubts Garnet could have had about it really being her.

"But I used it anyway. It was the only thing left." Rose looked down at her own hands, clenched tightly in her lap again. "There wasn't anything else. Anyone else."

As terrifying as the thought was of that being the truth, of them being so close to losing control over the precarious balancing act that the renewed fight for Earth had quickly become, Garnet found herself believing it— and making up her mind about something else, too.

"We'll talk to Bismuth about it," she stated simply, and got up, letting the sand fall away from her form.

"Garnet, wait!" The sudden note of desperation in Rose's voice made Garnet pause, and turn back to face her despite her misgivings. Made her wonder, too, what Rose had seen happen to _her_ in that terrible other reality. "Where are you going?"

"I'll be in Amethyst's room."

"Oh," Rose blinked, settling back down into the sand. "I thought— nevermind."

Thought, or feared? Feared that Garnet was about to drag Bismuth out from wherever they'd been hiding her and have her join the seaside confrontation, most likely. As much as she'd appreciate the particular brand of support of one of her oldest and most stalwart friends, Garnet didn't need Future Vision to see the unmitigated disaster the situation would devolve into. No, that bubble had to be popped, as soon as possible— but definitely without Rose there, at least at first. Not until Garnet could ensure nobody would be meeting with the business end of a sword, pink or otherwise. Something she was still selfishly, and with a considerable dose of guilt, glad she hadn't had to witness. Something she would never allow to happen again.

"Good night, then," Rose offered, subdued but sincere.

Garnet made a few more steps back towards the beach house, then reconsidered, and stopped, turning back towards Rose with a soft sigh.

"Don't think I'm not glad to see you. We all are. Even Pearl. It's just been... difficult. We've been forced to manage without you, and we've worked so hard to do that— we need to find a place for you in our lives again. It'll take time, but we'll find a way. I know we will."

Rose managed a tiny, sad smile. "Future Vision?"

Garnet smiled at her in return, in what she hoped was an encouraging way. "Nope, that's still not back. This is something a bit more trustworthy. Enjoy the sunrise."

She gave a small farewell wave before heading back towards the Temple.

Her lips twisted in a wry smile as she realised Rose had deftly, and on Garnet's own urging at that, transferred another huge burden onto her. _She_ was the one with the secrets now, with that most hateful of choices: what to tell, whom to tell, and how much of it to share at all.


	12. What Makes You Think I'm So Special?

**Summary:** Sheena worries about her girlfriend and decides to go for a drive.

 **Chapter Twelve: What Makes You Think I'm So Special?**

Sheena checked her phone for the umpteenth time.

Nothing.

Not one text, not a single, solitary missed call.

And that was completely unlike Pearl. It was also completely unlike Pearl to stand her up in the first place. Even when one of their 'missions' or something got in the way, Pearl always made a point of texting or even calling to say she'd be late, or could they please reschedule..?

Sheena worried at her lip, a bad habit she'd hoped, once upon a time, piercing it would cure (spoiler: it hadn't). Beach City wasn't too far from here. And, okay, so maybe she'd never actually _been_ to Pearl's place before, but it was supposed to be near some giant old statue on the beach, under the lighthouse, so not exactly hard to find. The only question was: how would the other alien space rocks take her trespassing? It wasn't like she could call ahead and ask if she could come by— if she had a number for any of them, she'd have called already. But Pearl tended to talk about Garnet, Amethyst, and Steven in glowing terms, so they couldn't be all that bad, could they? Seemed unlikely they'd mind. Even if it felt a bit like Pearl was still reluctant to let her meet them.

What if something _had_ happened? Those 'missions', the whole 'fighting our monstrous, corrupted former allies' thing seemed pretty dangerous; a couple of times Pearl had actually turned up to a date bearing an assortment of scrapes and scratches. They always faded quickly, almost right before Sheena's eyes, and Pearl assured her that gems didn't even bleed in the same way humans—

Ok, _fine_. That was it. She was going to go. Even if the weather was shitty. Even if she was probably just overreacting. She could worry about her reception on the way over.

Her keys were in the kitchen, her wallet was in her jacket and her helmet was right by the door, where she'd left it. Even with a double-back to grab her phone charger and a power bank, and then the inevitable struggle back into her cold weather gear, she made it out the door in under five minutes. She bumped it shut with her hip and heard the click of the lock and started down the dim hall, tugging on one of her gloves with her teeth, as best she could with her helmet tucked under that arm. She hit the dark landing in the middle of checking the weather and traffic along the route to Beach City, and then damn near tripped over some idiot who thought it'd be a great idea to sit on the top step, looking down.

It was, of course, not an idiot, but Pearl herself, knees drawn up tight beneath her chin.

Relief came first, in an exhalation that took the tension coiled tight in her chest away with it. Anger, though, came hot on its heels. How long had Pearl been sitting here? Sitting _right here_ while Sheena worried and wondered what to do? Wondered what had made Pearl miss their date, worried that she, Sheena, had done something wrong, or that something had happened to Pearl or that, hell, maybe even that the 'possible' apocalypse Pearl mentioned had become a certain one?

Anger was just as quickly replaced by a fresh burst of concern, though, when Pearl turned enough to look up at her.

She looked like hell. Hell on a bad day. Her usually immaculate hair was windswept and dotted with melting ice crystals, her 'clothes' and skin soaked through and dripping. Her nose dripped, too. And even in the poor light, Sheena could see that her big blue eyes were watery and red-rimmed.

Standing there, in the near dark, the building creaking around them in the wind, Sheena wondered, not for the first time, who had made the gems, and why they'd made them so _human_ in so many ways. You could make a case for bipedality, bilateral symmetry and all that, but why did a hard-light hologram need hair? Why an opposable thumb with one joint, why four fingers per hand and not six or two or ten? Why fingernails, and eyelashes, and eye _brows_? Why did gems cry, or get snotty noses, or blush in unspeakably adorable ways? And why - _why_ \- give something the ability to not only think but _feel_ if you were just going to treat it like an object, or a toy?

Sheena sighed, pocketed her phone and held out her hand. Pearl took it, with some hesitation, and allowed herself to be helped to her feet. She always seemed to 'run' at just a few degrees above the ambient temperature, which Sheena supposed made sense for a space-faring race, but tonight her delicate fingers were like icicles in Sheena's bare hand. Not quite burningly cold, but close.

It didn't take much effort to coax Pearl inside after that, and the offer of a towel while Sheena de-wintered was all it took for her to start drying off and stop dripping on the kitchen floor. Pearl even put the kettle on, grabbing a coffee mug from the cupboard and, after a brief hesitation, a teacup. The apartment was soon filled with the smell of jasmine, and Sheena's hands with a steaming mug of inky black with one sugar, just the way she liked it.

A bit late in the day for coffee, maybe - Pearl had some trouble with human ideas about time - but then Sheena was a fairly hardened and hard-wired java junkie and doubted it'd keep her awake. She took it without comment, and, when Pearl seemed on the verge of opting for 'standing in the kitchen and staring down into her teacup' as her activity for the rest of the night, took her skinny arm too, gently towing her over to the couch. Pearl sat when Sheena did, never really averting her gaze from the teacup, clasped tightly in both hands.

Now what? Wait it out? Sometimes the best thing you could meet silence with was silence. Give whoever it was time to either get their thoughts together and relax, or get anxious enough about the silence itself to break it.

...of course, most of the people who'd put Sheena on the spot like this before were friends, or friends of friends, or one very human ex-girlfriend. This, however, was the _current_ girlfriend, and also a several thousand year-old alien warrior who could be, quite literally, patient as a stone.

Sheena got through half of her mug and was actively battling the urge to check her phone before she gave in.

"Did you walk here?" she asked.

 _Nod._

"All the way from Beach City?"

 _Nod._

"That's a hell of a way to walk. Even if you do have 'stamina _far_ superior to a 'mere' human being'."

The daintiest of shrugs was all she got in response to the slight goad and her deliberately bad attempt at mimicry, and Sheena frowned.

"I'm not mad about the movie, if that's what you're worried about. Things come up sometimes. I'm just glad you're safe."

 _Silence._

Sheena rolled her eyes and put her mug down on the coffee table.

"Look, you know, we _could_ sit here and play twenty questions all night," she said, letting some of her frustration come through. "Or - here's a thought - you could just _tell_ me what the hell's bothering you enough to come all the way over here and then just sit on the stairs in the dark instead of knocking on my door. Or returning my calls."

Pearl flushed guiltily, and finally raised her head.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do. And then, when I got here, I—"

She ran a hand through her hair, and somehow only succeeded in making it more ruffled. Without the stabilisation of a second hand, the teacup held in the other began to shake, threatening to spill its untouched contents. Pearl gingerly lowered it down onto the table beside Sheena's, eyes following it all the way. And then Pearl kind of _shut down_ again, staring at, or maybe through the table in the kind of screaming silence that left Sheena clenching her jaw with the effort of not breaking it first and in frustration.

Patience had never been her greatest virtue.

"It all came rushing back," Peal said so abruptly that Sheena actually started. Pearl didn't seem to notice, continuing on more slowly, almost wonderingly. "Almost like nothing has changed. But it _has_ changed! I _know_ it has! And even if it wasn't that, it's the _worst_ possible timing. Why _now_? Why not _before_? Earlier? Before I—" Her hand fisted, and she hit her own thigh in apparent frustration. "And I _know_ it's probably terrible of me to just come _running_ here, and I _know_ that it makes me a _complete_ hypocrite because this is _exactly_ the kind of thing I'm angry at _her_ for doing in the first place, but _then_ I thought it's probably even _more_ terrible for me to just— just _ignore_ you, and to not let _you_ know what's happening, and then—"

Well, that all made zero sense.

"Whoa, okay, Pearl, it's okay," Sheena soothed. "But you need to back it up a bit. What happened?"

Pearl looked up at her with wild, almost frightened eyes.

"Rose. Rose is back."

Sheena blinked.

Well.

That was unexpected.

"Rose? As in—"

"Yes. Rose Quartz."

"Oh," she said.

Sheena blinked again. Then sat back hard against the couch. The remnants of her frustration fled so quickly it almost felt like her chest had been hollowed out.

 _Rose Quartz_ was back?

But that didn't make any _sense_. Hadn't Pearl said she'd died when having Steven? Or, not _died_ , exactly, but, somehow _become_ Steven? In a way that meant she wasn't here anymore?

Honestly, the way Pearl had explained it, even the second time, the whole thing hadn't made a lot of sense.

"I thought you said she was dead..?" Sheena hazarded.

"She _is_ dead. Well, not exactly. She gave up her physical form in order to have Steven, but—" Pearl stumbled to a halt. "Steven is still here. But so is she. I— I don't entirely understand it myself, I've always hated dealing with temporal paradoxes, the math is _so_ convoluted, but it's her. Steven is still here, but it's _her_. I'd know her anywhere. _Anywhere_."

Well.

What did you say to that? What _could_ you say to that? The news that your girlfriend's for-all-intents-and-purposes-dead ex was no longer dead, or even just resting? Some lame quip about zombies, or vampires, or other undead? That maybe Rose had just been 'pining for the stars'? Would Pearl even get the reference? Probably not?!

In the end she went with: "Wow. _Heavy_ ," and inwardly cringed.

"I don't think you quite understand. This shouldn't be possible!"

Sheena considered this, and then further considered the fact she was was dating an alien who proved that law about advanced technology being magic on a damn near daily basis. 'Impossible' was a word rapidly receding from her vocabulary. Hell, Pearl had literally just implied that her species had _time travel technology_ and Sheena hadn't even batted an eyelid.

"Yeah, well, aliens made out of light shouldn't be possible, but here we are."

"Yes. Yes. Yes, here we are!"

Pearl began to laugh.

It started slowly, hesitant at first, but built into that particular type of hysterical giggle that straddles the uncomfortable boundary between comedy, tragedy, and lunacy. Sheena wasn't at all surprised when the laughter dissolved into sobs that Pearl attempted to muffle with her hand, slim shoulders curled in and shaking.

But when Sheena went to pull her into a hug - and maybe gems did it of their own accord naturally, or maybe it was something they'd picked up from humanity, but Pearl really seemed to embrace _embracing_ \- Pearl shied away.

Oh.

Of course.

Rose was back. Rose Quartz, leader of the Crystal Gems. Rebel general and all-round badass-slash-hero-slash-genius who, if Pearl was to be believed, was so good and nice that she cried _literal healing tears_. And compared to all of that, there was her, Sheena, part-time punk rocker, full-time broke PhD student and, lately, rebound girl for a love affair that had lasted longer than most human civilisations.

Rebound girls were temporary. Rebound girls were replaceable. And rebound girls, in her own, rather personal experience, had a particularly high chance of being thrown over the moment the old, original flame expressed any renewed interest.

Sheena found herself looking down at her lukewarm cup of coffee and wishing it had something stronger than caffeine in it. She looked up again at a light touch on her arm: Pearl, face tear-streaked but concerned.

"I'm sorry," Pearl said. "This is... This is not how I wanted this to go. At all. I didn't want to have to—" She sighed, her free hand fluttering vaguely through the air. "I wanted to handle this better."

Sheena's heart sank a bit further.

 _Damn._

And, of _course_ , it had to be just when she'd started to think that they actually had something together. Something that might carry them past the day when that first mutual spark of curiosity and attraction and the whole enormous rush of 'I'm dating a _literal alien_ ' wasn't enough anymore. Something that might last longer than a few months.

At least she could go down gracefully. Take it like a woman.

"It's okay," Sheena said, trying her damndest to keep her voice level. "This sort of thing's always... rough. I appreciate you coming to tell me in person though."

Pearl blinked at her in apparent confusion.

"How else would I..?"

"I've been dumped by text message before," Sheena admitted. "For future reference, I don't recommend doing that."

"'Dumped'?" Pearl frowned and blinked again, this time in that way that usually meant she was trying to work out some unfamiliar (usually human) concept or idiom. Then her eyes widened in apparent understanding. "Oh. Oh! You think that I'm... ending our relationship..?"

"Well, yeah. Aren't you?"

"No..?"

It was Sheena's turn to blink, something painfully and rather embarrassingly like hope flooding through her.

"No..?"

"No!" Pearl looked offended by the very suggestion. She grabbed at Sheena's closest hand and took it between both of hers. "I wanted to apologize for missing the film," she said earnestly. "And for not calling you back. And to explain. And then I thought we should… talk. About what you wanted to do. About us. And, um, Rose. Because—"

She stopped abruptly and swallowed hard, squeezing Sheena's hands between her own. She looked way too much like she was about to start crying again.

"—because it's not fair of me to assume what you'd want," Pearl finished in a whisper.

Sheena closed her eyes for a second to try to think. A long, deep breath helped a bit. So, Pearl didn't want to just end things. That was a good start. But Rose Quartz being back had a high chance of dragging things even deeper into 'its complicated' territory, something Sheena had honestly thought was not actually possible.

"Okay. Okay. Well. I guess that depends on what's going on, exactly." She wet her suddenly dry lips. "Are you, you know, going to get back? With her?"

"I don't know." Pearl bit her lip. "Part of me wants to, but... another part of me doesn't. I think. I _do_ know that I don't want to go through it all again. The… others. Waiting for a repeat, and knowing that I was second best. Knowing—" She stopped, paused, seemed to draw back from some precarious mental ledge. "Knowing all of that, I'm not even sure that I _could_ do it again, even if I was willing to. It's been… difficult." She sighed, and looked up to meet Sheena's eyes. "It was _always_ difficult, truth be told. She was right when she said we'd never had it easy."

The little laugh Pearl gave at the end of that was both sad and fond, and, to Sheena's ears, pretty telling.

"You still love her though, right?"

She tried not to make it sound like an accusation. Pearl seemed to take it as one anyway, kind of folding over into herself to take up even less space than she usually did.

"Yes," she admitted in a very small voice. "I… don't think it's something I can... _stop_."

"Well, then, I guess it seems pretty clear—"

"But I love you too!"

That brought Sheena up short. _Way_ short. The kind of short that stopped your heart and blanked your brain and sent chills racing up and down your spine. The good kind.

"Oh," she said dumbly. "Well. That's..."

Everything she knew about Pearl so far told Sheena that, despite her 'flair for the dramatic', Pearl wouldn't make that particular declaration lightly. She'd mean it. It'd come from the heart. Or... 'stone', which seemed to be the equivalent saying. _Serious_ , in any language. As in the _five-thousand-year-romance_ kind of serious.

 _Oh. Wow._

She _liked_ Pearl. She liked Pearl a lot. How could anyone not? Pearl was brilliantly smart, quirky as hell, by turns bashful and blasé and not exactly hard on the eyes either. But did Sheena _love_ her?

The sick, gut-wrench feeling at the prospect of being dumped suggested that there was something more than just 'like' there.

Oh, _shit._

How was she going to explain this to her parents? 'Mom, Dad, remember when I told you I met someone, and that she was a bit older? Well, when I said 'a bit' I meant 'a lot'. And also she's an alien from outer space who once saved our planet and our species and I'm trying to show my appreciation for that one on a very personal level.'

"-and I don't think I'm like her. Rose. I'm not— I can't be with someone and be with someone else too and just… _assume_ that everything will be fine."

That'd be a problem for another day. In the meantime, it sounded like Sheena was missing some vital exposition. 'Be with someone and be with someone else too'? 'Assuming everything'll be fine'? And that earlier moment of backing away from the mental ledge - about repeats and being second best. Hmm.

"That's what Rose did?" she asked. "With you and Greg? Assumed everything would be okay?"

Pearl nodded.

"And Avinash, and Isabella, and Karatina, and Hye-Jin, and the hundred or so others before them."

Rose Quartz: serial humanizer. That was an unexpected bit of tarnish on her glowing reputation.

"That's... not cool."

"No, it's not 'cool'!" Pearl snapped, anger flaring and dying like a supernova. "That's what we fought about today. Or, rather, I shouted at her about it. I always used to tell myself that she'd come back to me in the end. But this time she didn't. Well, she _did_ , I suppose, just now, but..."

"I get what you mean," Sheena answered her mute appeal. "What did she say?"

"I always thought I'd made it abundantly clear how I felt, but apparently this was not the case. She said she'd had no idea!" she huffed, and Sheena concluded that Rose Quartz, rebel general and serial humanizer, was also either blind or a bad liar given that Pearl wore her figurative heart on her sleeve. "She even offered to talk to Greg about it, but I said that wouldn't be fair to him. It would just make him feel bad, and it's not his fault." She paused. "Well. Not really." Another pause. "Certainly not _entirely_ —"

"I'm guessing she never asked you about it then, huh?"

"She asked me if I'd still love her. How could I say no to that?" Pearl sighed, and the flash of anger was gone again. "And, well, she may have asked once. The very first time. But how could I say no?" Another sigh, almost leaden with heaviness. "Anyway, it's all right there in the manifesto. Love isn't something you can control. You love who you love."

A manifesto? _Of course_ they had a manifesto. Every good rebellion needed a manifesto, and Pearl, Sheena had learnt, was nothing if not a perfectionist. Sheena had never heard of one that focused on love, except in certain terrible corners of the internet where 'love' was a word often used incorrectly. Fifty bucks said that the Gem's manifesto was beautifully carved in stone somewhere, with lots of frilly little delicate flower decorations and the galaxy's most ornate border. Probably even one of those big illuminated letter things.

"But at the same time, I did risk everything - _everything!_ \- for us," Pearl continued softly, more talking to herself than Sheena. "That was in there too. My life, my mind, my _freedom_ , any chance I ever had of going back to space. I had nothing left _to_ risk by the end. I never understood what else I had to do after that. Was I supposed to keep fighting, somehow?"

As heavy as this conversation was already, Sheena wasn't sure she wanted to delve any deeper down the rabbit hole tonight. That twist in particular sounded like something at least one of them would need to be in a better place, emotionally, to explore. Talking about the Gem War and her homeworld generally got Pearl upset, and from what they'd already gotten through together, Sheena couldn't blame her. The Diamond-whatsit sounded like a pretty horrible place.

"Pearl."

"Was I supposed to fight _them_? That's in the manifesto too. But it always made her so _upset_ when I merely said I _disliked_ them that it couldn't _possibly_ be that—"

"Pearl-!"

This time Sheena complemented the word with a touch to Pearl's shoulder, and she seemed to come back to herself.

"Oh. Sorry. Sorry." Pearl's eyes flitted down to the hand on her shoulder. After a brief moment of hesitation, she covered it with one of her own, thankfully much warmer than it had been at the start of the night. "But, well, all of that's why, with you, I wanted to see what _you_ wanted before anything else. It's... important to me."

What Sheena wanted. That was question for the ages. And one where the wrong answer, or the right one phrased wrong, would probably mean she wouldn't get it.

So, break it down.

She wanted Pearl. Again, the gut-punch prospect of dumping made that one pretty obvious. She wanted Pearl in all of the ways that she could have her, and even some of the ways in which she couldn't. Not for the first time, she shook her mental fist at Kansas. The movies had lied, and her hot alien girlfriend didn't have the biology for sex, let alone much interest in having it. At least she wasn't one hundred percent grossed out by the idea, or always averse to lending a helping hand when things got a bit more heated than intended on Sheena's end. And, _man_ , she had _great_ hands—

Whoa there, girl, getting sidetracked.

So, a big, emphatic 'yes' to wanting Pearl. But did that mean she wanted Pearl all to herself? Could she deal with Pearl wanting someone else? If that someone was Rose Quartz?

That really depended on just who Rose Quartz was, didn't it? Aforementioned badass healer-slash-hero-slash-genius, if Pearl's stories were to be believed, kind to animals and small children, and generally the best thing before and since sliced bread. But Sheena was also rapidly getting the impression of someone who was, at best, a seriously shitty communicator and oblivious trampler of hearts and, at worst…

Well, in Sheena's world there was a big difference between 'oblivious' and 'uncaring'. There was an even bigger divide between 'oblivious' and 'willfully cruel'.

 _Oblivious,_ she could forgive. She had to hope Rose was just oblivious. It was possible. Everything Pearl had ever said about her people added up to a species with zero EQ. Apparently they hadn't even known what love was, until Pearl and Rose had fallen headlong into it and found themselves making things up as they went along. Sheena could imagine just how easy it'd be to fuck things up if you had no good examples of romance or relationships to work from, especially with their planet's whole gross caste system thrown into the mix.

Besides, it just seemed so... _incongruous_ that someone could meet Pearl and get to know her and see her smile, hear her laugh, watch her eyes light up and hands wave all over the place when she got really into a topic, and not care if they hurt her.

Oh _man_ , she really did have it _bad_.

So, with all that, what _did_ she want?

"Well… I really like you," _smooth_ , _Sheena, smooth, keep on talking like you're in kindergarten, the ladies love it_ , "and I still want to, uh, be with you. But I know that Rose means a lot to you, too. And, look, I'm kind of a newcomer on the scene, and, you know, if you're not sure what you want with her, I think I can still be with you while you work that out. Longer-term? I dunno. I guess that'd depend on if you, um, loved us both. I'm not sure how I'd feel about it, especially if whatshisname, Greg, is still in the mix. I mean, I don't have anything _against_ polyamory, I've just never done it before, and I'd definitely want to actually get to know her first, so—"

"Polyamory?"

"You know, when more than two people are in a relationship together."

"'Poly' meaning 'many' or 'several'. 'Amor' for love. Of course. And of course you humans have a word for it. You have words for everything."

"It's called 'language', Pearl," Sheena deadpanned. "I thought you guys had that one too. Or is it just interplanetary flight, and teleportation, and holography and, oh, I think _time travel_ was the new one for today. The report to my government handlers this week is going to be an interesting one."

Pearl rolled her eyes at what had become something of an in-joke between them, but smiled for the first time all night. Sheena would count that as a win.

" _Clearly_ I've said too much. Just trust me when I say that generally the best way to deal with temporal paradoxes is to ignore them." Her smile fell. "Would that we could in this case. Though now that I think of it, I'm not certain she's come back or forward as much as..." she trailed off.

"As much as..?"

"I don't know. She's clearly modified the Hourglass of Time," Pearl said, the capitals neatly slotting into place as she spoke the words. "But how did she get it in the first place? Steven destroyed it on one of his first missions, and it wouldn't have reformed-" Pearl frowned thoughtfully, then shook her head. "I think we're getting away from the topic at hand."

"Me and you," Sheena said. "You and Rose. Not _together_ , but, I guess, kind of you seeing both of us _concurrently_. Or… one of us not at all."

Pearl nodded, that frown returning.

"Honestly… I think it could be either," she said, and sighed, heavily. "I don't know what I want with regards to Rose anymore. I thought I did, but—" she ran her hand through her hair, another one of those oddly human nervous gestures. "But regardless of that, you told me not that long ago that I shouldn't do something just because you wanted it or enjoyed it. The same applies to you. Don't… Don't offer, ah, ' _concurrency_ ' if it's not actually what _you_ want. What you want is important to me."

"I know," Sheena said, capturing her hand, slightly cool and slightly oddly-proportioned, in her own. "But thank you for saying so too. So, I'm gonna tell you what you told me then: I'm willing to give it a try and see how it goes. And if it's not working for me, I'll let you know, and then we'll re-evaluate, just like we did then too. Ok?"

"Ok," Pearl said and nodded, serious as a heart-attack.

"Ok," Sheena affirmed. "And, if we're re-evaluating stuff, do you still want me to come over next week?"

Pearl looked blank for a moment, then her eyes widened with surprise and remembrance. They'd set the date a month ago. Sheena had actually been really looking forward to it. See the Temple for herself. Poke around some alien tech. Meet the other alien space rocks. The doted-upon Steven.

Rose Quartz had not figured in her plans. To be fair, it didn't seem like she'd figured in Pearl's, either.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! With everything that's been going on the past few days I'd completely forgotten!"

"That's cool. We can reschedule when things have calmed down a bit. Or if things are going to be too weird, you know, have me and the undead ex there at the same time?" Sheena blinked, her ears registering the words her mouth had just delivered. "Oh, shit, sorry, that came out wrong."

Pearl looked at her with confusion.

"I'm sorry. I have no idea why you're apologizing..?"

"I think I just called your - called Rose Quartz a zombie. Hasn't been hungering for human brains or anything since she got back, has she?"

Recognition visibly dawned.

"Oh, no, no. No. Mind you, there isn't exactly a surfeit of human brains around the Temple at the best of times."

It wasn't like it was even a particularly funny line of conversation, but Sheena found herself succumbing to giggles.

"What about blood? Pretty sure vampires qualify as undead."

Pearl rolled her eyes extravagantly.

"Oh, _honestly_ , is that one still kicking around? You regenerate in _one_ coffin, in _one_ crypt, _one_ time and suddenly you're the centre of an entire mythos."

And there went Pearl, casually dropping another minor bombshell into Sheena's life.

"You're kidding me, right?"

Pearl just smiled sheepishly and shrugged.

"Capes were fashionable at the time."

"Of course. You in a cape with _that_ skin tone- Oh, man, _and_ you never drink," Sheena paused meaningfully, and nearly lost the battle with her giggles again, "… _wine_."

"What does wine have to do with anything?"

"You know," and there, the battle was lost again, giggles spilling out of her, "I've always wanted to be a creature of the night. Should I start leaving the windows unbarred?"

"Now you're just being silly," Pearl said, an unmistakable mix of exasperation and fondness in her tone.

"Yeah, well," Sheena said, sobering up a bit, "still want me to come over, Vlad? Or should we reschedule?"

Pearl paused to think for a second, then she nodded, chin set stubbornly.

"Yes. Come over, I mean. If you're willing. I'm not going to just rearrange my life at the drop of the proverbial hat."

"Yeah. What the hell. Let's do it. Besides, you've kinda got to expect capital D Drama when meeting the family for the first time. Especially if your girlfriend is Dracula."

Pearl groaned.

"And I thought it was bad when _Amethyst_ found out."

"Never let you un-live it down, huh?"

"No." Pearl rolled her eyes. "Just when I thought she'd _finally_ forgotten about it, that horrible novel came out. I'm told there are movies now."

"Just a couple." Sheena felt a yawn coming on and decided not to fight it. The blinking time on her DVD player read 20:42, which meant the actual time was closer to midnight. One of the drawbacks of dating immortal, indefatigable aliens: they kept obscene hours. "I probably should get to bed. But I could queue up a couple of the less-bad ones for you if, you want to, y'know, stay here and let things settle back home. They've usually got period costumes, and I'll bet they're all really," she paused for dramatic affect, " _inaccurate_."

The look of mild irritation Pearl gave her this time suggested she was probably approaching done with teasing for the night, but it faded quickly. Sheena didn't miss the way that her eyes flicked over to the DVD player, and then to Sheena's pile of hastily-shed cold-weather gear.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't think about the time. You should get to bed. You humans need your sleep."

"Us humans need our sleep," Sheena echoed.

"Though I would like to, um, stay here. If that's alright. And let things 'settle'." Pearl's eyes dropped to her lap where her hands sat, fidgeting with each other anxiously. Then she sighed, shoulders drooping and, for the first time in Sheena's experience of her, actually looked _tired_. "I don't think I could handle facing Rose again right now. Or Garnet. Or any of the others."

"Sure. Did you want me to queue up some Interflix for you?"

"No, thank you. But could I, ah—" Pearl bit her lip, her cheeks going that adorable shade of fluster-blue. "May I, um, _stay_? With you?"

' _Stay_ ' had become a kind of a codeword between them. Most of the time, if Pearl stayed over for the night, she'd spend it in the kitchen or lounge, watching whatever entertainment Sheena queued up for her (and, despite Sheena's increasingly half-hearted and slightly guilty protests, cleaning or fixing things. Her apartment had never been so spotless). ' _Stay_ ', though, meant Pearl staying over the night, in Sheena's bed, cuddling.

"Sure."

Sheena took a bit more time than usual with her nightly routine of teeth brushing, face-washing, toilet-using,and piercing removal/care. It'd be cold enough overnight to merit PJ's, she decided, and stripped off in favour of light sweats and the overlarge and ancient _Anthropology Minors: Bleed the Fourth World Tour_ shirt that served as her winter set. The quilt - and presumably Pearl - would take care of the rest.

Pearl was sitting on the end of her bed when she entered the room, head cocked to one side as she idly thumbed through a copy of the IAMEE _Propulsion, Power & Rocketry _journal. She looked up and smiled, vacating her seat to allow Sheena to slip under the covers, watching her as she settled and tried to get comfortable. Which would probably be easier, Sheena privately admitted, if Pearl wasn't watching her.

When she was suitably settled, Sheena patted the spot beside her in an invitation Pearl was quick to accept. She burrowed beneath the covers, not so much snuggling up to Sheena as moulding herself to her body, a slender leg over one of hers, chest flush against Sheena's side, head pillowed on her shoulder. Her hand came to rest in the centre of Sheena's chest, over her heart.

Appearance-wise, Pearl usually put Sheena in mind of a bird: hollow-boned, bright-eyed, and sleekly aerodynamic. Behaviour-wise, though, Pearl seemed a lot more like the more tolerable kind of cat. _Tactile_. That was the word. Always touching, reaching for Sheena's hand or arm or waist when they were out and about, snuggling against her side or chest when they were somewhere more private. They couldn't even watch TV on the couch without Pearl ending up in her lap three-quarters of the time.

Not that Sheena minded that. Not one bit.

Snuggling in bed couldn't help but make things different. Context, was what it was. And not just in the awareness that there were activities other than sleeping that they could be engaging in, but that it was primarily a place for sleeping and Pearl simply did not sleep. She'd stayed over like this maybe half a dozen times so far, and the knowledge that she was there, awake all night, watching, waiting, did something to Sheena's primitive lizard brain and wired her to be awake too. Every time but the last she'd tossed and turned the entire night. And the last time she wasn't sure if she slept because she'd managed to take her psych friend's advice to reframe it, in her head, from being _watched_ to being _guarded_ , or because she'd just been absolutely, totally exhausted.

Pearl settled against her quickly, a light, warm weight. Sheena yawned and felt blindly for the light, plunging the room into darkness. Or near to it.

"Pearl?"

"Mm?"

"Nightlite."

"Oh. Sorry."

The light winked out. Sheena closed her eyes, settled a bit more, and tried to allow her mind to drift...

Some unknown time later, she woke with a start, blinking against the light and the sudden dread of oversleeping. The color of the light was wrong for morning, though. Or even for her overhead lights. Blue.

Sleep-addled, it took her longer than it ought to have located the source of the disturbance: Pearl, still curled up fast against her with, to Sheena's astonishment, every indication of being fast asleep. Except for her gem, which blazed.

Sheena turned her head to the side to follow the lines of blue light, and watched the vague shapes resolve themselves into a objects, people - strange looking people, probably more gems - and was that… Rose Quartz? It fit the description. And… that had to be Garnet..?

Pearl had said that she _could_ sleep, just that she didn't like to. And as the scene firmed up, as Pearl's gem began to emit, not just light, but _sound_ \- shouts, screams, the clash of metal on metal - Sheena had a sudden insight as in to why that was.

"Oh boy."


	13. Look at You Go

**Chapter Summary:** Rose Quartz meets the barn mates, and tries very hard not to think about her past.

 **Authors' Note:** We had a first draft of this finished... well, a very long time ago, but a certain episode necessitated some significant rewrites, as I'm sure you can all imagine.

oOo

 **Look at You Go**

The light of the warp stream faded, and Rose found herself presented with a picturesque winter landscape. Gently sloping hills sketched in white, below a steel grey sky, the slight promise of sun sneaking in through the clouds. There was a brisk breeze in the air, chill and pleasant against her bare skin. Rose couldn't help but smile.

"We're here!" Steven chirped, and immediately took off, his boots crunching in the frost as he jumped off the warp pad. Unlike herself and Amethyst, his half-human body was not immune to the cold. He was bundled up warmly in the most _adorable_ of outfits; a cozy blue sweater, big poofy pants, a wooly hat with cat ears. He seemed so poofed up that Rose was amazed that Steven could even move, but he seemed completely untroubled as he ran off, Amethyst close at his heels.

Rose hesitated before following. She wasn't afraid, as such, just… uncertain. Her memories of the barn were… hardly pleasant.

But she could hear cheerful voices over the hill, and Steven saying, "We have someone for you to meet!" so Rose shook herself and carried forward. She crested the slope, and there was Peridot.

Or, a _version_ of Peridot.

It was most certainly the same Peridot she knew. Same gem placement, same Song, high and reedy. But if not for that, Rose would have hardly recognised her. She was _short_ , first of all, missing not just her arm enhancers, but her leg ones as well. The difference was all the more striking due to the clothes she wore. Physical _human_ clothes, made of fabric, not light. A giant bulky sweater, about two sizes too large, huge sleeves dangling past her arms, boasting a bright rainbow of colours. A red bowtie around her neck. She was wearing something on her legs, too— not pants, but rather the kind of 'boxer shorts' Greg wore when he slept, these lime green and depicting those odd grey-eyed aliens that humans were so fond of.

And, most disarming of all: she was _smiling_.

It started as a polite, expectant smile which turned into one of surprise as Peridot's eyes travelled up and down Rose's body. "A... quartz?" She glanced at Steven. " _Another Rose_ Quartz?"

Steven was grinning, and Amethyst too was smirking. Peridot's eyes went wide. She stuck out a hand. "Greetings!" she announced, as Rose bent down to shake it. "You must be fresh from the Kindergarten! Do not worry, I am here to assist you in this confusing and overwhelming period! Not only am I an experienced and certified Kindergarten technician, I am also an expert on this planet!"

Rose couldn't help it. She giggled.

"Oh dear," she said. "I'm not— I'm not a newmade!"

"You're not?" Peridot blinked, then looked from Rose up at the sky, towards Homeworld. "Then are you from—"

"Oh, no," the explanation slipped from her lips easily, as close to real as thousands of years of repetition and practice could make something, "I was created here, a long time ago."

"On Earth? Where? Your coloration does not appear to match either of the Kindergartens' sediment, although, between you and me, with Beta, that doesn't necessarily mean much. Was there a third incubation location? If so, I would appreciate the opportunity to inspect it. Hm," she squinted up at a particularly wild set of pink curls, "rich in iron, too, I see. I have never met another Rose Quartz— barring Steven, of course, but he supposedly came from a 'womb' and taking samples was apparently not an option—"

Rose Quartz laughed to cover her dawning discomfort and horror.

Peridot's brow furrowed in confusion, and Steven figured it was time to explain. "She's my Mom!"

"Your… mom."

"Yep!"

Rose could practically see the thoughts running through Peridot's mind— the gears churning, as the human metaphor went. She felt concerns bubbling up she mercifully hadn't had to feel in what seemed like ages, over things she'd convinced herself were long over and done with— but Peridots were experts when it came to all things Kindergarten-related, and Gem classification and identification was their forte.

But then it was like the clouds parting, and Peridot's smile appeared like the bright sun. "Then I am still happy to greet you, Rose Quartz! I have heard a great deal about you! I must introduce you to Lapis Lazuli and show you our barn!"

Her chest puffed out, Peridot turned to lead them away—

— only to trip face first into the snow as her shorts slid down her legs.

Amethyst snorted. "Ha! Having fun with the underwear Peri?"

"It's perfectly enjoyable, I suppose," Peridot grumbled, as she wiped snow off her visor. "The size of these physical appearance modifiers is simply ill fitting."

"I could give you some in your size, if you want 'em. Pretty sure I have a lot of boxers in my room." Amethyst chuckled again, but held out a hand to Peridot, who took it and allowed herself to be hoisted up. Peridot pulled her pants back up, then set off again. Rose hid her surprise under her usual smile. The Peridot in her other timeline had never allowed anyone to touch her, not if she'd had the option. And _Amethyst_ certainly wouldn't have been willing to touch her, either.

The place they lead Rose to was certainly the barn— but like everything else on this Earth, it had been transformed. It was not just a simple farm house anymore. There was a water silo jutting out of the top, half a car sticking out of the front, all sorts of sculptures and snow figures decorating it. Outside there was even a tent and a little ice skating rink. It was strange, and unexpected, and utterly charming.

There was so much to take in that Rose didn't notice the blue figure flying overhead until she dove down towards them. She stopped short, hovering in the air a few feet away.

A Lapis Lazuli. The others had told her about her, but Rose still took the time to look her over. The last one she'd seen had been millennia ago— a poor corrupted soul, unable to stop herself from creating storms in her wake. It was quite a pleasure to see a healthy Lapis, lovely in her blue dress, graceful on her wings. Even if Rose still wasn't quite clear about how she'd gotten here.

"Steven!" the Lapis cheered, upon seeing them. "Amethyst. And who's this?"

"Hello. I'm Rose Quartz," she said, and remembering the earlier misunderstanding, added, "Steven's mother."

"Oh. Hi."

In stark contrast to Peridot, Lapis did not smile. Not even once during the entire round of introductions and explanations.

Once they were finished, however, Lapis did land and say, "I guess we should invite you in."

"Excellent idea, Lapis!" Peridot threw open the barn doors with a flourish. Inside, Rose discovered an _art gallery_.

Or rather, a 'Meep Morp Presentation Area', as Peridot called it, but names were irrelevant— it was wonderful, regardless. There were paintings, sculptures, collages, television screens, fountains… It was the type of thing that Gemkind had never produced. Oh, yes, there were artist types back on Homeworld. Artisans and architects, whose singular purpose was to create murals, temples and pieces in dedication to the Diamonds. But this was something else entirely. Wild, chaotic, creative, abstract… and entirely unique.

Rose was so caught up in admiring it, that she was a little slow to notice Peridot asking her a question. "I'm sorry, but could you please repeat that?"

"I said, would you like a refreshment?" Peridot dug around in a crate, pulling out an armful of juice boxes.

"Ooh! Yes please!" Steven said, hand shooting up.

"Sure. Hit me up, Dot." Amethyst opened her mouth wide, and Peridot promptly tossed one of the juice boxes inside. There was a loud crunching as Amethyst swallowed.

"I would love a juice-box, thank you," said Rose, who took one gratefully. She inspected the box, which cheerfully exclaimed the flavor to be ' _Apple Guava Dance Party_ '. She'd had juice boxes a few times in the past, and remembering how fiddly they could be, very carefully removed the plastic wrapping from the straw.

Steven, however, just tore the plastic off and jabbed his straw through the hole. Or tried to. The straw kept crumpling when he tried. He frowned. "I think it's frozen."

"I'll get it," Lapis said, and waved a hand. The juice box in Rose's hand suddenly became warmer, and when Steven tried to insert his straw again, had no trouble.

"Thanks Lapis!" chirped Steven, and Lapis smiled at him. It made her face much gentler.

"Thank you," Rose echoed, carefully poking her own straw through. She took a long sip of the juice, savouring the sweet, fruity flavour against her tongue. "Are either of you going to have some?"

"I am incapable of making a digestive tract," said Peridot.

"Food is disgusting," said Lapis.

 _Oh. Pearl must get along_ wonderfully _with these two._

The thought of Pearl made something clench uncomfortably inside of Rose, so she turned away from the thought quickly. She cast around the barn, looking for something else to talk about. Thankfully, there was an abundance of conversation pieces. She turned to a mobile of dangling baseball equipment and asked, "What's this?"

It was the perfect thing to say. Peridot was ecstatic for the chance to discuss her meep-morps, and Lapis too seemed quietly pleased by the attention. Steven bobbed happily from piece to piece, eventually grabbing a tambourine from the floor and banging on it absently as they spoke. Amethyst seemed perfectly content to collapse on a pile of garbage and observe from a distance.

Rose was bending down to inspect a sculpture constructed from a tree stump and an impressive amount of googly eyes, when she spotted a flash of orange out of the corner of her eye. A pumpkin, with carved eyes and mouth.

Except, the pumpkin was _moving_. Not a lot— just, vibrating slightly. Tucked in the corner, beneath a blanket, it gave the distinct impression that it was shivering.

"Hello," Rose breathed. "Who're you, then?"

The pumpkin blinked at her.

Slowly, carefully, Rose approached, crouching low and reaching out a hand, but still the pumpkin didn't come any closer. Was she scaring it?

"Oh, you found Pumpkin!" said Peridot. "Come on, Pumpkin, say hello." The pumpkin backed deeper into the corner. Peridot stomped her foot. "Come on! You're being rude!"

"It's been very quiet lately," said Lapis. She swooped over and picked the pumpkin up into her arms. It snuggled in happily.

"Maybe she's cold?" suggested Steven.

"Or bored," said Amethyst.

"She's lovely," said Rose, who reached out a hand to stroke Pumpkin's skin. Cool to the touch, slightly bumpy, just like an actual pumpkin— only sentient. "Where did you come from?"

Pumpkin just barked at her.

"That was me," said Steven. "I made her."

"Of course," Rose said, shaking her head. She kept forgetting: Steven truly did share her powers. Though for the first time the bloom of pride came with an odd touch of what might have been apprehension. "What a wonderful use of your abilities!"

Steven's cheeks flushed pink. Rose reached forward and ruffled his hair, delighted when her son's blush deepened.

"It is a fascinating ability," said Peridot, as she pet Pumpkin's stem. "I know of no other Gem capable of manipulating organic matter in such a way. Is it an emergent property of Steven's hybrid nature?"

"I can animate plants too," said Rose. "But I'll confess, I never thought of shaping them in the form of a dog. That idea was entirely Steven's."

"It wasn't an 'idea', really. Pumpkin just sorta popped out that way." Steven tickled the pumpkin's non-existent chin.

"Still wonderful," said Rose.

Peridot was giving her an appraising look. "May I enquire about the full nature of your abilities?"

Rose shifted. The question was phrased so politely, no apparent malice in it, but…

But could she trust Peridot? She had tried, once before, and it had nearly cost her everything.

But this wasn't the same Peridot. Or, at least, not quite. This alternate version of Peridot was strikingly different from the one she'd know. Brighter, more thoughtful, more personable…

… but more _trustworthy_?

And what of the Lapis Lazuli? With her withdrawn demeanor, Rose was not quite sure what to make of her. Why was she here, and how? How come she had been completely absent from Rose's own past? She still wore the Diamond insignia on her outfit— as did Peridot, at that.

But then, that was hardly a surefire way of judging. It had sometimes taken centuries for Crystal Gems to shed their diamonds. Not only could regenerations be few and far between, but when they did come, it was such an easy thing to overlook. For so many, the diamond symbol was just an ever-present part of their existence. Coming back without them was, for some, as unthinkable as regenerating without eyes.

Perhaps this wasn't Rose's place to judge, anyway. Amethyst seemed to like Peridot and Lapis. Steven too. Garnet and Pearl must have trusted them as well, to allow them such freedom. The pair had built themselves this little home out of Greg's old barn, with art and a pet, and snacks for guests. Surely that meant something.

Everyone was watching her, and the moment was stretching on, leaving Rose with no choice but to stretch the truth in turn. Or twist it just a bit, look at things from a different, more suitable perspective. She'd always been good at that. "I was built with all the standard Quartz abilities in mind, with a few experimental additions. The Diamonds," her distaste was both audible and as real as anything, "wanted someone more defense-oriented, someone who could serve as a bodyguard and caretaker. I was a prototype, intended to be the first Gem capable of healing others."

"Healing," Lapis repeated. She held Pumpkin closer to her chest.

"A cost-effective solution," said Peridot. "Imagine how many resources could be saved if cracked Gems could be healed instead of recycled and Harvested."

"Precisely. It was rather a disappointment when the healing powers didn't manifest."

That was certainly how she had felt, when the original crop of Rose Quartzes hadn't performed quite the way she'd hoped.

"What do you mean?" Steven asked. "Don't you have healing tears?"

"Oh, yes, I do," said Rose. "But crying is not something encouraged on Homeworld. It took me centuries to discover. Most of my powers took quite some time to reveal themselves. Many of them, I don't believe anyone expected me to have."

The expression on Steven's face was…. difficult to pin down. There were a lot of emotions there, many that Rose couldn't even begin to place, but among them was surprise.

Was this new to him? Rose supposed it had to be. There was only so much Garnet knew about her— their past, and so much that Pearl wouldn't— couldn't?— tell, of the _Before_. Though of course things were so different now… this was a different timeline, its original Rose Quartz was gone… Would the order even still be holding?

 _I kept them all anyway, your secrets,_ Pearl's voice echoed, tear-filled and shaken and unusually bitter, from only days ago.

So even if Pearl could tell, if... _that_ had somehow come up, she'd chosen not to. Rose felt a swell of affection for her oldest companion, her confidante... but the stab of sadness and frustration that seemed to accompany all her recent thoughts of Pearl reared its head soon enough, and decided to take on a troubling new aspect.

Because there it was, the _other_ , more reluctantly acknowledged dimension to Pearl being upset, and upset, apparently, with her. Because if the order _didn't_ hold, and if Pearl decided to— if Pearl got just upset enough— if Pearl wanted, for some reason, to— to get back at her in some way—

Pearl wouldn't! Her Pearl would never—

( _And, well, you tried to make sure anyway, didn't you?_ a small and suspiciously Pearl-like voice piped up in her mind.)

But what if _this_ Pearl did?

Rose shook her head slightly, and pried her thoughts away. All of that was long over, and none of it was important anyway. What was important was that the Crystal Gems all knew the parts of her past that _mattered_. Their shared struggles and triumphs and discoveries, testing their very limits and exploring their true potential, developing wonderful new powers. Surely the others could have told Steven about those?

But maybe her friends hadn't had the chance. Maybe they hadn't thought Steven was ready. She'd seen some of her powers manifest in him, some quite impressively, and had had glimpses of what he could already do, but—

Maybe he _wasn't_ ready. Maybe she shouldn't be talking about this at all. Or maybe she should be talking about this with him in private. Rose didn't know. She had no idea how to be going about any of this.

And Peridot was eyeing her again with interest and open fascination. She needed to talk about something else. Anything else. Rose was just about to say— _something_ , maybe ask about Peridot or Lapis or their art— when she was saved by the distant sound of the warp pad activating.

"More guests!" said Peridot. "I'll get them!"

She bounded off to the door on all fours. When she flung them open, Garnet was waiting there, Pearl half-hidden behind her.

"We have to go," Garnet said. "Mission time."


End file.
